Engineering Software for Mechanical Simulations

[Kaura]

I am a first year Mechanical Engineering Major
I am wondering if there are any good computer program that I could use to simulate the physics and properties of potential designs
The other day I saw something about Da Vinci's famous cryptex and this peaked my interest into designing and building my own as a sort of introductory learning experience into engineering
I have some designs down on paper for it with measurements and what not and they seem rather solid as the actual device is not too complex however I would like to be able to test my design and any future designs with some sort of program that would allow me to test the moving parts in my design in a graphical setting
Programs that are free would be desirable and if there is some easier way to test my design I would be willing to here about it as well
Thanks in advance

 

[Dr.D]

There are many aspects of testing a design, and it takes a very sophisticated and expensive computer code (in most cases) to test every aspect. To illustrate, for a given system, you may have questions about the (1) kinematics, (2) dynamic response, (3) strength of the elements. Most of these could be checked with a sophisticated FEA program, but not with the freebies.