Ask HN: What are the best simulators for inventing from your desktop?

[wannainvent]

Hi HN, I'm a long time hacker who's always wanted to give inventing a try, despite not having an engineering background.

What are my best bets for experimenting from my computer?

They seem very expensive, but Would I need something like Hyperworks, Autodesk, or Wolfram?

I'm noticing some interesting open source projects here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_computer_simulation_software

Are any of these worthwhile?

[Yaa101]

Depends what you are trying to do, your question is not narrow defined.

If you want to do electronics you will end up with mostly with some variant of SPICE, which is quite an old simulator.

Let other people give you other solutions.

[wannainvent → Yaa101]

Hi Yaa101, thanks for the response. I probably should have been more clear that I was talking more about classical engineering than hardware hacking.

Things like mechanics, fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, magnetism, and maybe even some chemical and materials science.

Like if Tesla or Edison were alive today, what would they be using... Or if Elon Musk or Dean Kamen couldn't afford Autodesk :)

Hyperworks seems like the best fit, but I'm definitely looking for lower cost alternatives.

Anyway, thanks for suggesting SPICE.

[Yaa101 → wannainvent]

It seems that a lot is done nowadays in Python, though then you must be able to program, it is rapidly replacing more traditional platforms.

Success further.