Show HN: Vanilla JavaScript refinery simulator built to explain job to my kids(fuelingcuriosity.com)
60 pointsby fuelingcurious4 hours ago14 comments
  • jason_s14 minutes ago
    OOH! Neat! I looked on my mobile phone enough to get a sense of what this is.

    I'm not in the petroleum industry, but about 45 years ago I was mesmerized at an energy fair at my elementary school by this Exxon magazine that showed the refinery flow with a bunch of little dots: https://archive.org/details/p-2330663/P2330670.JPG

  • dwringer32 minutes ago
    I accidentally clicked through the explanatory text after the first slide (I was still clicking the pump and didn't realize one more click was going to skip through); I have not been able to get the applet to rewind back to the beginning.
    • fuelingcurious25 minutes ago
      If you hard reset, it will erase your save file cookie and forget your progress. Another option, if you push through to the end and deliver your first product, you unlock the refinery map feature and can jump back to the extraction step!
  • lfpeb8b45ez12 minutes ago
    This is great, but I really thought it was going to go from crude oil to refinement to data centers to LLM tokens to explain every software developer’s job!
    • fuelingcurious4 minutes ago
      Haha man maybe I’ll add a track to keep going until you arrive at the website hosting the Great Refinery Run. Energy-ception
  • fuelingcurious3 hours ago
    Hello y’all as the post says, certainly a novice stepping into y’all’s space, but I am passionate that we can use the newest form of coding to allow us to change the way we teach. I think it’s a different way to use AI to teach, not having it explicitly do the teaching, but a way to extract context from different backgrounds into more fun learning tools.
    • idiotsecantan hour ago
      This is a great example of the kind of 'good enough' software that LLMs enable. Before LLMs existed you'd either hire someone to do this an exorbitant cost or you'd pick up a second full time job learning the nessessary skills.

      This software doesn't need to be massive scaled, hyperperformant, and absolutely bug free. It just needs to do its job well enough, which it does.

      I am also a (non-software) engineer and although I can write software (poorly) I have also used these tools to do some things that previously just wouldn't have gotten done.

      We still need people to do Serious Software but for millions of little applications like this LLMs are a game changer.

      • fuelingcurious30 minutes ago
        Thank you for the support! I tell my team this all the time, there’s no point in building systems that we rely on to be perfect to integrate LLMs, but we can use them to low risk workflows that otherwise would never get coding/automation support.

        It’s really changed the way I work from opening up the ability to write deterministic code, but I’ve yet to see many instances that we could tolerate a “in-the-loop” LLM yet.

  • usuian hour ago
    I just want to say that despite the AI negativity in other places, this highlights the positive aspect of it. I'm sure this could have been done without it, but I'm glad OP could get it out faster for a low-risk use case, shared it with us, and in the process taught a little bit of refining to others. It's a fun minigame.
    • fuelingcurious26 minutes ago
      Thank you, almost like you read my manifest for this haha. I was concerned the learning would get overshadowed by the LLM use. Hope you learned some interesting facts that help you understand the why of refining a little bit more. I started developing this before the conversation around oil became mainstream media again.
  • nkalupahana25 minutes ago
    I think it would be great if the game also talked about various negative externalities at different points in the process (pollution, etc.). IMO would go a long way in making the game more well-rounded, and would add more varied content.
    • fuelingcurious22 minutes ago
      Fair, I can think through adding risk points where poor stewardship can exasperate these concerns. Thank you for your feedback.
  • insin3 hours ago
    Phase 1b: The Desalter doesn't show anything on the grid in Firefox (v148.0.2), so you automatically lose.
    • fuelingcurious3 hours ago
      Ah interesting, I have playtested on safari, chrome, and edge. I’ll have to look into what’s unique there. Thank you!
      • cameron_b3 hours ago
        Up-to-date Firefox on Linux allowed me to complete certification of a shipment of Jet fuel, no trouble all the way through.

        Great concept and execution.

        • fuelingcurious3 hours ago
          Hurray! Thank you for the update note. I was going to get after it tonight after I put the kids to bed otherwise.
          • superxpro122 hours ago
            On Win11 Firefox latest (148.0.2), I still cant see them :\

            You owe me nothing! I just wanted to let you know!

            • fuelingcuriousan hour ago
              If you open the Firefox inspection window, right-click any element on a webpage and select Inspect. Alternatively, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+C (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Option+C (Mac). You can also access it via the menu button (three horizontal lines) -> More Tools -> Web Developer Tools.

              Does it show any errors?

      • joeframbachan hour ago
        I figured out why it wouldn't work on my machine:

            @media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
        *, *::before, *::after {
            animation-duration: 0.01ms !important;
            animation-iteration-count: 1 !important;
            transition-duration: 0.01ms !important;
        }
    }
        With reduced-motion enabled (which is basically required in Tahoe :eyeroll:), animations complete immediately and there is no chance to click the salt/water.
        • fuelingcurious33 minutes ago
          Ah! Tried to add an accessibility feature and broke it! I’ll see what I can do to find a better middle ground.
  • zbuttram3 hours ago
    Great to see a spiritual successor to SimRefinery[1] after all these years!

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimRefinery

    • fuelingcurious3 hours ago
      I’ll take the compliment! My goal was to keep each unit to simple tap and drag play dynamics. If there’s another curiosity, mechanical, electrical, another unit, I can add it to the development plans. It’s fun for our family!
  • ecshafer2 hours ago
    Great little education game. Sulpher particles move really fast, might be worth slowing them down 20%. I was basically random clicking to get them.
    • fuelingcurious2 hours ago
      Fair point, I have a rebound energy and terminal velocity set, still lower the top speed! Thanks for the feedback.
  • Tacite3 hours ago
    It's very good and you can be proud. Your kids should be too!
    • fuelingcurious3 hours ago
      Thank you! They call themselves my play testers and ask to see if I have added anything new almost daily for the last week or so. I have a bonus level for the SRU I’m trying to perfect.
  • why_only_15an hour ago
    Very cool stuff! Thank you for making.
    • fuelingcurious24 minutes ago
      Thank you for playing, would love to hear the most interesting fact or minigame you enjoyed the most!
  • TheGamerUncle3 hours ago
    Hi sorry do you have the code for this I have been delaying to work on something like this but would love to use this as boilerplate.
    • fuelingcurious3 hours ago
      Hello! Thank you for the vote of confidence! I deliberately left the client-side JavaScript un-obfuscated (AI showed me how to do it, but then I undid it for posting here). A colleague of mine started talking about selling it as a training tool, but ha I don’t know if that is in the cards. If you send me an email, we can talk about helping you get a head start!
  • bcze56bbn8542 hours ago
    Thanks I really liked it and it taught me a lot
  • sealthedeal3 hours ago
    This is awesome