How to create and interactive, distributable program?

[Kenneth Gomez]

Hello all,

In my course, I am asked to develop a basic finite element analysis
program. It is basically a program for engineers to evaluate the
stresses and strains in any given structure, e.g. beams, cars, ships
and so forth.

The program would need to have a GUI. The main characteristics of any
commercial FEA package is that it has to be mouse drive, i.e. a user
clicks the rectangle button from a widget and then proceeds to click 4
points on the drawing window, and the program then draws a rectangle
using those 4 points. 

After which, the program would have to calculate the area of the
rectangle and then proceed to divide the rectangle into many small
rectangles, which length would be given by the user. In FEA, this
would be known as meshing.

To do all of this, my questions are , can Python handle the
mathematics, e.g. does Python have a subroutine to inverse a matrix,
or find the modulus of a number,....? Or, is it like C, where I have
to write the subroutine myself?

Second, will I be able to create the GUI explained above within 3
months?

Third, can I make the GUI into an executable file so that I can run it
off the laptop/workstation that will be used for the presentation?

Thanking you in advance for your advise.




Cheers,
Kenneth Gomez.