MANIM in Physics Teaching is a lecture and hands-on workshop showing how modern animation can make physics clearer, more intuitive, and more engaging. Using Manim, an open-source Python library for animations, we will demonstrate how to turn equations, diagrams, and data into dynamic visual explanations that help students build accurate mental models of physical processes.

The session will present practical examples from physics, highlighting how animation supports conceptual understanding, reduces common misconceptions, and improves retention. In the workshop part, participants will see a simple end-to-end workflow (idea → script → animation) and learn how Manim can be integrated into lectures, labs, and online materials with reusable, customizable content.

 Invited speaker: Uwe Zimmermann from Uppsala University

 MANIM, from Mathematics and Animations, is a Python library which was created by the well-known Youtube profile Grant Sanderson, aka 3Blue1Brown. Grant has a background as educator in the established Khan Academy. His introductory videos to basic and advanced mathematical and scientific videos cover a wide range from algebra to quantum computing. In order to present the concepts in his videos he created a library of helper functions which spread to other educators during the time of increased online teaching in the corona pandemic. Since the library was primarily programmed by Grant for his own use, he deemed it to be almost unusable by everyone else before a group of enthusiasts formed and started to develop a "community edition" branch, eradicating many bugs and writing a comprehensive documentation including examples for many simpler use cases. During the time 2020 to 2023 even external plugins were added for specific areas like physics and chemistry - even though these have not seen the same intense development as the core of the library. I myself came first into contact with the library just before corona, but gave up on it, because of the lack of documentation. Instead I developed some basic animations for my electronics courses using LaTeX. In late 2021 I revisited the project and since then I have used the ManimCE library for many animations from analog and digital electronic circuits and mathematical derivations of complex impedances and linear regression methods to band diagrams in semiconductor devices. In my spare time I have become active in the online ManimCE community as well, where I help new and advanced users to find programmatic solution to their animation ideas. 

In this talk I will present some of the animations I have made over the years as complementary teaching material for my students, predominantly in engineering physics. I will discuss my pedagogical ideas and concepts and where I believe these animations find their place. I will also present some concepts utilized by other users of Manim and pose the question which kinds of animations might be more or less useful in conveying the concepts we intend to teach and how to possibly get the most gain from a tool like Manim.

First workshop In this workshop we will guide you through the installation of the Manim library on your computer, followed by the introduction to the basic functionality of the software with focus on the scene's coordinate system, placement and animation of primitive geometric objects, geometrical drawing and plotting of functions. We will also give you some insights into the internal workings of the rendering of scenes and into the use of automated updaters to bring your objects to life. 

Second workshop During the second workshop, we will show you advanced techniques used by advanced users of Manim. We will use them to understand the design of more elaborate scenes and speed up the animation process. Based on your own project ideas or our suggestions we will help you to start creating stunning animations by yourself. We will share with you valuable online resources to further develop your usage of Manim and invite you to contribute to a growing community of creators to bring teaching science a step forward.