Skip to main content
Back to KTH start page

Teaching: Interactive Lectures (Manim)

Manim

In autumn 2026 I rebuilt the lectures of SK2303 Optical Physics as animated slides made with Manim, the open-source Python animation library first written for the 3Blue1Brown videos. Every figure is computed from the physics and then animated. The students' response has been very positive. They especially liked watching the experiments run while the parameters changed.

 

Watch a sample here, with AI generated voice over 

 

Try it yourself

 

The starter kit contains the drawing and layout toolkit, an example deck, a one-command build, and instructions that Claude reads before it starts. It is not specific to optics: any topic where a picture that moves helps, such as mechanics, waves or electromagnetism, works the same way.

 

Download the starter kit

 

You need Claude Code with a paid Claude plan, and a LaTeX installation (MacTeX, TeX Live or MiKTeX). Claude installs everything else.

  1. Install Claude Code: claude.com/claude-code

  2. Unzip the kit into a folder for your course and open that folder in Claude Code.

  3. Ask Claude to set up the kit: Read CLAUDE.md, set up the environment and build the example deck.

  4. Describe the animation you want, for example: Make a slide where the resonance curve of a driven oscillator is traced live as the driving frequency sweeps.

  5. Review it in your browser and ask for changes in plain language.

To convert a whole lecture, give Claude your existing notes (LaTeX works best) and ask it to turn them into an animated deck.

Profile picture of Ali Wanis Ali Elshaari