CVCK - BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium

CVCK Student Lab Manual 1IntroductionThe Cardio-Vascular Construction Kit (CVCK) is a program that allows theconstruction of real and hypothetical cardio-vascular systems by connecting togethercomponents, such as simple hearts, lungs, blood vessels, muscles and capillaries.You can connect these components together in any manner you like, and then havethe program run a simulation on the system you have constructed.The program is based on the parameters of a normal dog heart, but allows theconstruction of very simple cardio-vascular systems such as the simple loop of ateleost fish, as well as more complex systems such as the mammalian cardiovascularsystem. It is even possible to construct systems with more than one heart,such as segmented worms (earthworms have 10 hearts), or systems that arecompletely hypothetical.Figure 1: The Cardiovascular Construction Kit