From YPPedia

Whirly Math Lab is a third-party tool maintained by Lordkalvan. It allows you to practice using whirlpools without having to worry about sail tokens, getting guns loaded, the brigand moving, or getting shot.

Using the Whirly Math Lab Applet

Full details for using the Whirly Math Laboratory applet are found at How to Use the Whirly Math Laboratory. For practicing the patterns in the Whirlpool tutorial, just click either Start at Open or Start at Closed as appropriate, then click Change Tokens to set the tokens to match the pattern shown. While Change Tokens is active, clicking the spots where the tokens (or cannonballs or grapples) go will rotate between the possible tokens just like it does in-game. When you have the pattern matched, click Change Tokens again to deactivate it, then click Go. You can adjust the speed of the applet by moving the slider bar at the top of the applet to the left a bit.

Troubleshooting the Applet

Usually if the applet doesn't work, installing the latest JVM fixes the problem.

The applet does not work with all browsers on Macintosh computers for some reason. If you can't get the applet to work in a Safari browser, then you have the option of downloading the source code (see next section).

Using Whirly Math Lab Offline

If you have trouble running the Whirly Math applet, or just want a peek at the (ugly, "quick and dirty with no comments") code, here's what to do.

1. Download and install NetLogo 3.0.2 (Whirly Math Lab was created in version 3.0.2 - it doesn't work in later versions of NetLogo) (free)
2. Download and unzip whirlymath.zip (92.2K)
3. Open NetLogo, then use File Open to find where you unzipped whirlymath. You need to open the whirlymath.nlogo file.
4. Use the same instructions for running the program as are on the applet. Ignore the extra buttons and menu items (unless you want to learn about NetLogo).