MDSolids Web

Problem

MDSolids, the mechanics-of-materials teaching software created by Dr. Timothy A. Philpot, was Windows-only desktop software — durable and well regarded, but incompatible with a classroom where students carry phones and Chromebooks, not Windows machines. A modern equivalent needed to run anywhere a browser runs and let a teacher hand a student a link to a pre-loaded problem instead of a file.

System

MDSolids Web is a clean-room reimplementation of the kinds of analyses the original offered: section properties, axial deformation, torsion, beam diagrams and deflection, truss analysis, column buckling, stress and strain transformation with an interactive Mohr's circle, combined loading, and pressure vessels — 11 modules in total. It is explicitly not affiliated with, derived from, or endorsed by the original software or its author.

Each module is a self-contained folder under a shared contract (MODULE_CONTRACT.md): pure, unit-tested math in compute.ts, checked against textbook values, and a separate index.ts for the interactive UI. Because the math and the interface are strictly separated, module implementation could be parallelized.

author defines module contract and worked examples → dispatch one module per worker → worker implements compute.ts + tests + UI against the contract → integrate → human review

A human author defined the shared ModuleDef contract and the worked textbook examples up front, then dispatched implementation of individual modules in parallel to workers, with a lead agent integrating the results. Every generated module was reviewed by the author against the contract before being accepted.

Human gates

• The module contract and worked textbook examples were defined by the author, not generated.
• Every generated module is integrated and reviewed by the author before it ships.

Provenance

Original work, 13 commits carrying Claude co-author trailers. Third-party components: Vite and Vitest; the application itself has no runtime dependencies. Licensed MIT, with the clean-room disclaimer kept verbatim: this project is not affiliated with or derived from the original MDSolids.

Status and next

Active, deployed to GitHub Pages at willieavendano.github.io/mdsolids. Classified as flagship and a product candidate, associated with the research program on computational research in secondary education (ND-R02). Not commissionable as client work; the project documents a possible departmental licence or support offering as a candidate, not a launched product.

Facts