Phun

Phun is an amazing software, created by professor Emil Ernerfeldt and his students at VRlab(Virtual Reality Laboratory) of Umea University in Sweden.

You can draw squares and circles instinctly, and because you can set parameters such as gravity, weight, balance, strength, material (liquid or solid) etc extremely easily, it enables you to think, play, simulate various things.

A while ago, every time a visitor comes to my office, I used to let them try out Phun for 5 minutes and they LOVED it.
Manuals are not needed a it is sooooo instinctive. Very cool. And it's FREE.

You can download the software from here

This is a demo movie;

ピタゴラスイッチが楽しめるソフト　Phun

Nico Nico creators found and picked it up very quickly and started to make amazing Phun videos. There are 607 Nico Nico videos tagged "phun"

There is a Japanese TV show called Pitagora- switch, this is a Phun version of that- called Nico Nico Switch.

【Phun】ニコニコスイッチ☆アイランド 総集編

made a rocket in Phun

Phunでロケットを作ってみた 2(画質向上版)

made a motorbike in Phun

Phunでバイク作った！【HQ】

made a clock in Phun

【Phun】時計作ってみました。

made a gun in Phun

Phunでリボルバー作った！

Played with water in Phun

Phunで水遊び。

... so all this reminded people of this video from MIT:

［神］マサチューセッツ工科大学の威力

I think there are lots of geeky people in the Nico Nico community which enables them to create such videos.

9/24 update:

This one is great too!

phunでwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww