About the App
GeYOPP (Generate Your Own Particle Packing) lets you explore the connections between shape, randomness, and packing in a fun and interactive way. Use your imagination to draw a shape, then perform an experiment on your iPhone to generate a dense random packing.
Can you find the shape that packs the densest?
With GeYOPP you can:
- Draw an arbitrary two-dimensional convex shape or select a shape from a catalogue of exotic shapes.
- Choose the number of shapes you want to pack.
- Apply gravity by shaking your phone to pack your shapes into a dense random packing.
- Compare your packing density with other users on the GeYOPP leaderboard.
- Create a unique and personal image of your packing to share with friends.
About the Project
The question of how densely particles of a particular shape can pack is one of the most ancient problems in science and engineering. However, not much is known about packings of non-spherical shapes. Rather than exploring the infinite space of possible shapes by an algorithm, GeYOPP invokes the imagination of the user to explore the connection between shape and the resulting random packing density.
GeYOPP is fun and educational, but at the same time lets the user investigate an open scientific problem: What is the shape that packs the densest in a random arrangement? GeYOPP is thus truly an app for “crowd research”.
GeYOPP was funded jointly by the School of Mathematical Sciences at Queen Mary University of London and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) under grant EP/L020955/1 “Optimizing Particle Packings by Shape Variation”.
About the Developer
GeYOPP has been developed by Therapy Box, an award winning app development company specialising in healthcare and education.
