Tulip Labs
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136 chapters · 7 tracks · one gardenfree to learn · runs in your browser · no sign-up

Tulip Labs: hard ideas in computer science, maths and modelling, learnt by playing with simulations

Hard ideas you can poke.

inside the letters: loading a tiny world…

Computer science, maths and modelling, taught as simulations: a city of voxels, a sandpile, a segment tree filling up block by block. Watch it move first, then write the code yourself, beat the hidden tests, and watch your garden bloom.

Pick a track Jump into the 3D worlds →
fig. 1 · one node, four neighbours, and two other components
what's insidebar length = chapters
Worlds12Poke 12 voxel worlds: cities, sandpiles, flocks, forest firesDesign32Match a target poster, card or layout in CSSComplexity12The Python behind every world, step by stepModSim26Model the real world: growth, epidemics, things that fallBuild X29Rebuild SQL, git, a CPU, an OS and a tiny GPT from scratchStats13Simulate chance first, then prove itDSA44From Big-O to Codeforces, one pattern at a timeODSsoonOpen Data Structures, chapter by chapter

From the ground floor
to Codeforces.

Scroll and the clouds clear one tile at a time. That's how the chapters work too.

a look inside

What it's actually like.

Every idea opens as a simulation you can step and poke. Then you write the Python yourself, right in the page, and checks tell you what works.

12 chapters

GraphsSmall worldsGame of LifeSandpilesEvolution
Open Complexity

Each step adds one real part, and the blueprint stacks it into place. Pass the last test and it ships.

29 chapters

A calculatorA languageA regex engineGitA 3D engine
Open Build your own X

Every question has a big hidden test, like LeetCode and Codeforces, so you feel why the clever way exists.

44 chapters

Hash mapsTwo pointersSliding windowBFSDynamic programmingSegment trees
Open DSA

Every track is a flower. Chapters make it bloom, and wrong answers come back later for review, so nothing slips.

136 chapters, one garden

3D worldsModSimProbability & StatsOpen Data Structures
Pick a track

the tracks / 07

Pick a door.

Each track is a run of chapters. Every chapter opens with a simulation, then climbs a ladder of exercises: predict, fix the bug, put the lines in order, write it, rebuild it from memory.

one XP, every track

Rest on what you've built.

Points from every track land in one total. Wrong answers come back later in your review queue, and a streak counts the days you show up. It all lives in this browser, nowhere else.

Carry on where you stopped →
fig. 2 · the cat sleeps on the stack. Tap to wake it, or stroke its back to make it purr.

your map

A world that fills in as you go.

Every chapter in the lab is a place on this globe. Finish one and it turns pink. Start one and it gets a cream cross.

  • ⊗0 chapters finished
  • ✚0 started
  • ▮0 still to explore
  • +open sea

how a chapter works

Watch, guess, then build.

  1. Play the simulationStep it, run it, switch the slow way and the smart way, and count the work each one does.
  2. Predict and runReal Python in your browser. Guess the output first, then check.
  3. Climb the ladderFix a bug, order the lines, write it, then take on LeetCode, Codeforces and big-company questions.
  4. Lock it inQuick-fire quizzes, a real-world project, and one rebuild from memory with nothing to copy.

what's new

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