A few years ago we created both a web and CD version of a "product in use" simulator for American Biophysics Corp, maker of the Mosquito Magnet(tm).

Usage is game-like enough that my pre-teen son toyed with it repeatedly. Yet the simulator has real life educational - even epiphanetic value.

Consumers - pre or post purchase - simply could not intuitively grasp the necessary concepts to place the trap and operate it effectively. The CO2 plume which mosquitos use to navigate to its prey is invisible. In the Flash simulation, we were able to "show" them the invisible plume and effects of breeze and wind direction - thus the importance of placement in the yard.

In the real world, many factors happen too slowly for a person to collate them. Water retained in hedges, bushes, and gardens create sources of hatching mosquitos. Stagnant water sources and "people areas" like decks, pools, playground equipment all become part of the flying and biting patterns of mosquitos.

The Flash simulation vividly portrays the effect of putting people between the sources of mosquitos and the trap - people will get bites. The user can play with wind direction and add multiple traps. Clicking "Breed Mosquitos" causes mosquitos to fly out en masse from the bushes, stagnant water, hedges, garden etc.

The mosquitos fly toward any CO2 emitter - people or the plume from the traps.

Recently the text was XMLized for easy translation substitution and we executed a version in Francais.

We also used MDM Zinc on the latest version - just for the more certain operation on Macs without the need for admin privs to install Flash. It runs w/o Flash installed on a Mac with OSX or higher.

Making a hybrid CD is a very exacting process. I really need a Mac Mini or any old Mac you could donate that has OSX or Tiger on it - to do testing. I used to be able to test at Kinko's but their machines do not have OSX.

For the educational intro, get placement_assistant.swf

Then for the interactive simulation, get yard_layout.swf

Mozilla users: http://codelock.com/pa_en/ English

http://codelock.com/paf/ Francais

Depending on your browser, you may be able to run it from here: http://mosquitomagnet.com/placement/
but for me on Mozilla at 1024x768, the flash movie stays tiny.

Had a report of a user with a 5 year old Gateway running ME who could not use the Placement Assistant. If you have trouble, see what version of Flash you have using this free online Flash version test.