This paper explores automating the qualitative analysis of physical systems. It describes a program, called PLR, that takes parameterized ordinary differential equations as input and produces a qualitative description of ...

This report describes MM, a computer program that can model a variety of mechanical and fluid systems. Given a system's structure and qualitative behavior, MM searches for models using an energy-based modeling framework. ...

I describe an approach to forming hypotheses about hidden mechanism configurations within devices given external observations and a vocabulary of primitive mechanisms. An implemented causal modelling system called ...

A mechanical design "compiler" has been developed which, given an appropriate schematic, specifications, and utility function for a mechanical design, returns catalog numbers for an optimal implementation. The compiler ...

Objects move, collide, flow, bend, heat up, cool down, stretch, compress and boil. These and other things that cause changes in objects over time are intuitively characterized as processes. To understand common sense ...