Artifact Shelf
Surprise me Source on GitHub

21 things on the shelf · updated Oct 10, 2026

Pick one up.

A shelf of small interactive web artifacts: simulations, explainers, generative art, games and toys. Each one is a single HTML file you can run, read and keep.

Browse the shelves Surprise me
Artifacts
21
Shelves
06
Total weight
3.9 MB
Build step
None
Electric Fire: Lightning and thunder computed from the physics: a leader grown through the electric field, the return stroke, and thunder built from the bolt's shape.
No. 21Simulations Electric Fire WebGL · Canvas 2D · SVG · 143 KB Lightning and thunder computed from the physics: a leader grown through the electric field, the return stroke, and thunder built from the bolt's shape. Open Electric Fire

Simulations

07

Physics and systems you can poke at.

Whole shelf

Explainers

04

Interactive pieces that teach one idea well.

Whole shelf

Generative Art

03

Procedural worlds, creatures and pictures.

Whole shelf

Games

03

Things to play, win and lose.

Whole shelf

Toys

02

Small things that feel good to touch.

Whole shelf

Tools

02

Utilities that do one job.

Whole shelf

The bigger project

One piece on this shelf comes from a full repository, with skills, tests and a site of its own.

Index

Every artifact by number. Type to filter by title, tag, shelf or technique.

No.ArtifactShelfMade ofSizeMade
21 Electric FireLightning and thunder computed from the physics: a leader grown through the electric field, the return stroke, and thunder built from the bolt's shape. Simulations WebGL · Canvas 2D · SVG 143 KB Oct 10, 2026
17 A Great Variety of ColoursA live soap film and soap bubble whose colours come from exact thin-film optics, as the film drains, turns black and bursts. Simulations WebGL · Canvas 2D · SVG 97 KB Oct 9, 2026
15 Belousov's ClockThe Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, run live from the Oregonator equations: a chemical clock, waves you tap and cut into spirals, and spirals in the heart. Simulations WebGL · Canvas 2D · SVG 135 KB Oct 9, 2026
16 Grand Complication AtlasA working 3D model of a grand complication pocket watch that keeps real time from its own escapement, with a tourbillon, perpetual calendar and chimes. Explainers three.js · Canvas 2D · SVG 156 KB Oct 9, 2026
18 Kármán's StreetVortex shedding and the Kármán vortex street, run in a live lattice-Boltzmann wind tunnel that measures its own drag, lift and Strouhal number. Simulations WebGL · Canvas 2D · SVG 92 KB Oct 9, 2026
19 KlangfigurenChladni figures from the real plate equation: a steel plate solved in the browser and driven at a chosen note, with up to 131,072 grains of sand on it. Simulations WebGL · Canvas 2D · SVG 168 KB Oct 9, 2026
20 Letters from the SkySnow crystals grown on the GPU from a published lattice model, steered through the temperatures and humidities of Nakaya's snow crystal diagram. Simulations WebGL · Canvas 2D · SVG 105 KB Oct 9, 2026
13 Lamplight Shadow TheaterMake a hand shadow in front of your webcam, hold it still, and it peels off the paper screen as a fox, rabbit, dog, swan or bird with a name and a mood. Toys MediaPipe · Canvas 2D · Web Audio 173 KB Oct 8, 2026
14 Recipe DiagramWrite a recipe as indented plain text and get a flow-table diagram, a written method, pan-size scaling and a step-by-step cook mode with timers. Tools Canvas 2D · SVG · Web Audio 165 KB Oct 8, 2026
11 Catching Booster 12The first tower catch of a Super Heavy booster, rebuilt from webcast telemetry as eight drawing sheets, ending in a catch sandbox you can fly. Explainers Canvas 2D · SVG 252 KB Oct 7, 2026
12 Desk, by daylightA desk seen from above, lit by the real sun and moon for any place and time, with a working sundial, window-pane shadows and a ray-marched WebGL scene. Simulations WebGL · Canvas 2D · SVG 119 KB Oct 7, 2026
09 Merrow Pocket PlanA pocket street map of an invented city, scored into 32 panels you fold like real paper in 3D. Somewhere in its folds is a walk the city forgot. Games three.js · Canvas 2D · SVG 171 KB Oct 5, 2026
10 StaveA typeface drawn on twelve tuned strings. Type a line and each letter plays where its strokes end, turn and cross, as plucked strings, bows and bells. Toys Canvas 2D · SVG · Web Audio 123 KB Oct 5, 2026
08 InfestationA page that draws its own TypeScript source, then lets four species of bug eat it token by token while two spiders hunt them and their genes drift. Games React · Canvas 2D · SVG 326 KB Oct 1, 2026
07 ORDINALConnect-the-dots taken apart into points, numbering and rule: solve and print 21 puzzles, or change the rule and draw times tables, roses and fractals. Generative Art Canvas 2D · SVG · Web Audio 258 KB Sep 30, 2026
06 BenthosThirty-four sea creatures, each a cloud of parametric points from a few dozen lines of trigonometry. Orbit any one, tune its sliders and read its source. Generative Art p5.js · Canvas 2D 152 KB Sep 28, 2026
04 Masis & SisArarat's two peaks, Masis and Sis, rebuilt from real elevation data and drawn live in six print styles, from engraved ridgelines to risograph and woodcut. Generative Art Canvas 2D 733 KB Sep 23, 2026
05 Shortest-Path Bound ExplorerAn interactive field guide to the C-HD shortest-path bound: term-by-term sliders, growth charts, a 3D win map and Dijkstra races on real street grids. Explainers three.js · Canvas 2D · SVG 275 KB Sep 23, 2026
03 Benthos reefA one-minute predator-and-prey game on a reef of point-cloud sea animals. Pick one of six species, eat what it eats and hide from what hunts it. Games WebGL · Canvas 2D · Web Audio 159 KB Sep 22, 2026
02 Mirror Cube SolverPaint a mirror cube's sticker thicknesses onto a net and get a turn-by-turn solution, played out on a 3D model built to the cube's real shape. Tools three.js · Canvas 2D 67 KB Sep 19, 2026
01 Forced Blowup for Navier–StokesThe mathematics behind the 2026 forced blowup results for Navier–Stokes: Clay's four statements, the BKM criterion, a collapsing vortex and a ladder. Explainers Canvas 2D · SVG 132 KB Sep 9, 2026

Tags

92 more tags with one artifact each