Virtual STEM laboratory · v1
A laboratory in your browser.
Nine physics, electronics and chemistry experiments whose results are computed from real equations while you watch — not played back from recordings. Set the variables, run the apparatus, take noisy readings, fit the graph, and get a full report.
The barrier
Most students never get to hold the apparatus.
Practical work is where science stops being a page of formulae and becomes something you can test. But a working physics bench, an electronics kit or a kinetics set-up costs money, space, supervision and consumables — and many schools, home learners and adult students simply do not have them. The usual substitute is a video of someone else doing the experiment, which removes the one thing that mattered: you deciding what to change and finding out what happens.
What LUMA does instead
Compute the experiment, don't replay it.
Every LUMA experiment is a mathematical model integrated in real time. Change the launch angle and the trajectory is re-solved. Add a resistor and the currents are re-derived. Measurements come from simulated instruments with documented resolution and noise, so "experimental" and "theoretical" values genuinely differ — and you get to explain why. Data tables, live graphs, fits, error analysis and a written report are built in.
Bench inventory
Nine experiments
Workflow
How a session runs
- 01 · Set up
Choose an experiment from the rail. Every variable is a labelled slider with a paired numeric field and units. Where it makes sense you add and remove components — resistors, parallel branches, an air-drag term.
- 02 · Run
Start, pause, stop and reset the apparatus. Time-based experiments integrate their equations of motion with a fourth-order Runge–Kutta scheme; circuits and optics respond instantly.
- 03 · Measure
Each "Take measurement" samples the instruments — with their real resolution and noise — and appends a row with measured and theoretical values and the percentage error.
- 04 · Analyse
Switch between live traces and data plots, fit a straight line, and read what the slope means. A "Describe this graph" button writes out the trend, extrema and fit in words.
- 05 · Observe
Record free-text observations with timestamps. They are stored with the data and appear in the report.
- 06 · Report
Generate a full report: objective, set-up, measurements, graphs, worked calculations with substituted numbers, result, error analysis, and a conclusion written from your data. Print it, or export as HTML or JSON.
Accessibility statement
Built to be operated without a mouse, a screen, or a steady hand.
LUMA is designed so that a student using a keyboard only, a screen reader, a magnifier, or who needs low-motion or low-complexity interfaces can carry out the same experiment as everyone else and produce the same report.
- Keyboard
Every control is reachable with Tab and operable with Enter, Space or the arrow keys. Sliders step with arrows and jump with Home/End. Visible focus rings everywhere; no keyboard traps; a skip link on every page.
- Screen readers
Labelled controls with units, live but throttled announcements of readouts and measurements, a text description of the apparatus and of every graph.
- Vision
High-contrast mode, scalable text that survives 200 % zoom, and no information carried by colour alone — LED state, warnings and graph series all have text, icons or dash patterns.
- Motion and cognition
Reduced-motion mode (and the system preference) replaces animation with stepwise updates. Simplified mode hides advanced controls and presents one task at a time.