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🧪 Garden Eel Current Sway Lab (2D)

A Kuramoto-coupled phase-oscillator model of a garden eel colony: current strength sets each eel's sway frequency, a synchronization slider couples their phases together, and startling the colony makes eels retract into the sand.

Fluid Dynamics & Aerodynamics2DModerate60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 3D version

This 2D companion trades the 3D original's decorative colony scene for the actual mechanism behind it: a mean-field Kuramoto model. Each eel is a phase oscillator anchored to its burrow; current strength sets its natural sway frequency, and the synchronization slider adds a coupling term that pulls every phase toward the colony average, visibly snapping a ragged shimmer into one coherent wave as the order parameter r climbs toward 1.

⚙ Under the hood

Mean-field Kuramoto phase-coupling (dθ/dt = ω + K·r·sin(ψ−θ)) drives each eel's sway; current sets ω, the sync slider sets K, and a startle click retracts nearby eels, dropping the visible-colony metric.

garden eelKuramoto modelphase synchronizationfluid dynamicscolony behavior

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install