I was assigned a project in my intro to computer programming class. The goal is to implement a numerical model to some engineering or physics/science problem. The course uses Java.An example might be a soccer ball's flight. I'm looking for something a little bit more interesting than just modeling gravity, air drag,.. and solving using Euler's.I am interested in numerical optimization and I looked at some algorithms but I could not find any topic to which I could apply them.Can you please shine me with some ideas?Thank you.
Topics for project
optimization
There are many interesting ordinary differential equations (ODEs) that make for interesting model cases. For example, predator-prey models like the one by Lotka and Volterra make for interesting cases and can easily be generalized to simulate the dynamics of multiple, interacting species.Similarly, modeling the gravitational interaction of multiple bodies makes for nice pictures.Feel free to get inspired using the snippets I've got here on an intro math modeling course:  http://www.math.tamu.edu/~bangerth/teaching.html#2010-fall-442