A gyrocompass is a type of non-magnetic compass which is based on a fast-spinning disc and the rotation of the Earth to find geographical direction automatically. Although one important component of a gyrocompass is a gyroscope, these are not the same devices; a gyrocompass is built to use the effect of gyroscopic precession, which is a distinctive aspect of the general gyroscopic effect.
This project simulates the movement of a gyrocompass and how its change in angular momentum overtime evolves due to planetary rotation.
Running one the main files opens a GUI and animation. The GUI allows the user to alter the simulated position on earth, the gyroscope angular velocity, the planetary angular velocity, the dampening constant and the step size. The animation shows the spinnig gyroscope's angular velocity direction, the gyroscopes position on earth, and the earth's corresponding rotation.
This module is most easily run in the VIDLE environment which can be downloaded at: http://vpython.org/contents/download_windows.html
Once the code in this repository has been pulled onto the local computer, open one of the main files using the VIDLE and run the module.
