DunceLab — Terms of Service

Last updated: 2026-06-24

DunceLab is a free educational app — an infinite feed of live, tweakable STEM simulations — and a product of Swrl LLC. By using DunceLab you agree to these terms. You can use the whole educational experience with no account; a few optional features (sign-in, community, the AI tutor, and supporting our work) carry the extra rules below.

1. Who we are

DunceLab is operated by Swrl LLC, a Tennessee limited liability company ("we," "us," "our"). These Terms of Service (the "Terms") govern your use of the DunceLab app and website. Our Privacy Policy explains what data we handle and is part of these Terms.

2. The service

DunceLab is provided as an educational tool, free of charge. The simulations are simplified teaching models — they are designed to build intuition, not to be exact, complete, or fit for engineering, safety, medical, financial, or other real-world decisions. We may add, change, or remove features at any time.

3. Eligibility, younger learners, and parental consent

You may browse, search, play every simulation, and keep progress on your device at any age with no account. Guest mode does not include community posting, reports, the contact form, the AI tutor, cloud sync, or financial support.

Accounts and online features require that you are at least 13 years old (or older where your country sets a higher minimum age for using an online service or consenting to data processing). Before asking for a name or email, we use a neutral full-birth-date screen to calculate eligibility. We do not store the birth date. If the result is under 13, we do not create an account or ask for a name, email, post, or AI prompt. By creating or completing an account, you confirm that the birth-date information is accurate and that you meet the requirement. We may suspend or close an account we reasonably believe is ineligible.

Parents and guardians. If you are a minor under the law of your jurisdiction, you may use the no-account educational experience freely, but you may use accounts, community features, the contact form, or the AI tutor only with the involvement of a parent or legal guardian where local law requires it. Financial contributions and subscriptions require an account classified as age 18 or older. By allowing a minor to use those features, the parent or guardian accepts these Terms on the minor's behalf, is responsible for the minor's activity, and is bound by them — including the disclaimers (Section 10), the limitation of liability (Section 11), the indemnity (Section 12), and the dispute, governing-law, jury-waiver, class-waiver, and one-year-limitation provisions (Section 16).

4. Your account

Optional features require a completed age check, a public display name, acceptance of the current Terms, acknowledgment of the Privacy Policy, and sign-in with Google or an emailed sign-in code. A display name does not need to be your legal name, but it must not impersonate another person or include contact or sensitive information. We store only a coarse age band, not your birth date. Keep access to your email or Google account secure; you are responsible for activity under your account. You may ask us to delete your account and its content at any time (see the Privacy Policy). We may suspend or remove an account that violates these Terms.

5. Acceptable use

When you participate, you agree not to:

We can moderate, edit, hide, or remove content and votes, and restrict accounts, to keep DunceLab useful, accurate, and safe.

Good-faith security research conducted in accordance with our Security Policy is not a violation of this Section.

6. Content you submit

You keep ownership of the comments, votes, and reports you submit. By submitting them, you grant Swrl LLC a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferable license to store, host, reproduce, adapt, publish, distribute, and publicly display that content to operate, improve, and promote DunceLab across all media and platforms, including through our mobile apps and the Apple App Store and Google Play, and to sublicense those rights to our service providers and to the app stores as needed to deliver the service. You confirm you have the right to grant this license and to share what you post.

Comments and votes are public. A "Something not right?" report — including any summary or suggested change you submit — is reviewed internally and may lead to a versioned change to a simulation. Reports are not public unless we separately choose to publish limited, non-personal information about a correction.

You may delete your account and content (see the Privacy Policy); deletion removes content from public display going forward but does not affect copies already lawfully cached or records we must retain to comply with law. Don't include personal or sensitive information in anything you submit.

Feedback. If you send us feedback, suggestions, or ideas about DunceLab — including a "suggest a concept" submission or a "Something not right?" report — you grant Swrl LLC a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free license to use them for any purpose, including to develop, build, and improve simulations and features, without any obligation or compensation to you.

7. The AI tutor ("Dunce") and AI-assisted simulation changes

DunceLab includes an optional AI tutor and AI-assisted review, powered by a third-party AI provider. AI output can be incomplete or wrong. It is for learning only — not professional, academic-integrity, safety, or other advice — and you should verify anything important. As described in the Privacy Policy, text you send to these features is shared with our AI provider to generate a response; don't enter personal or sensitive information.

Some simulations may be corrected or refined with the help of our AI review system, which can update a simulation in response to a learner report. These AI-assisted changes, like all of DunceLab's simulations, are simplified teaching models provided "as is" — they may be incomplete or wrong, are not professional, engineering, medical, financial, or safety advice, and you should verify anything important. Where a simulation has been changed by this system, its public version history records the change. The disclaimers in Section 10 and the limitation of liability in Section 11 apply to AI-assisted changes to simulation content just as they apply to every other part of DunceLab.

8. Supporting DunceLab

If your account is classified as age 18 or older, you can optionally support our work through DunceLab's funding pool or a monthly contribution. Users under 18 and guests may view the public pool but may not initiate a contribution through DunceLab. Contributions are support of Swrl LLC's work — not a purchase of any product, feature, or guarantee, and not a tax-deductible charitable donation. Swrl LLC is a for-profit company. Payments are processed by Stripe. The specific terms of support — what it funds, refunds, crediting, and milestones — are set out in our Funding Policy, which governs any contribution and is incorporated here by reference.

9. Ownership and intellectual property

DunceLab, including its software, simulation specifications, text, graphics, designs, documentation, and other original materials, is owned by Swrl LLC or its licensors and is protected by copyright, trademark, and other laws. These Terms let you use the service for its intended educational purpose; they do not transfer ownership or grant permission to copy, modify, distribute, publish, host, reverse engineer, or create derivative products from DunceLab.

The "DunceLab" and "Swrl" names, logos, and brand artwork are property of Swrl LLC. You may not use them in another product or service without prior written permission.

10. Disclaimers

DunceLab is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, to the fullest extent permitted by law. We don't warrant that the app, its simulations (including any changed by our AI review system), or its AI features will be accurate, uninterrupted, error-free, or fit for any particular purpose.

11. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Swrl LLC will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any lost data, profits, or goodwill, arising from your use of (or inability to use) DunceLab. Our total liability for any and all claims relating to DunceLab is limited to the greater of (a) the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) US $100. Some places don't allow these limitations, so parts of this may not apply to you.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, for our gross negligence or willful misconduct, or for any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited under the law applicable to you as a consumer.

12. Indemnification

To the fullest extent permitted by law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Swrl LLC and its members, officers, employees, and contractors from and against any third-party claim, demand, suit, or proceeding, and any resulting losses, liabilities, damages, costs, and reasonable attorneys' fees, arising out of or related to (a) content you submit to DunceLab; (b) your breach of these Terms or violation of any law or third-party right; or (c) your unauthorized use of DunceLab software, content, names, logos, or brand in violation of Section 9. We may, at our option, assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you, in which case you will cooperate with us. This Section does not apply to any liability arising from our own fraud, gross negligence, or willful misconduct, and nothing in it requires a consumer to indemnify us beyond what applicable law permits.

13. Copyright and DMCA

Swrl LLC respects intellectual-property rights and responds to clear notices of alleged copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. §512).

Designated Copyright Agent. Send notices of claimed infringement to our Designated Agent: DMCA Agent, Swrl LLC — Email: dmca@SwrlSite.com — Mail: 6339 Charlotte Avenue, Unit #C341, Nashville, TN 37209, USA.

To file a notice, provide in writing: (a) your physical or electronic signature; (b) identification of the copyrighted work claimed to be infringed; (c) identification of the material claimed to be infringing and information reasonably sufficient to let us locate it (for example, the comment, report, or node URL); (d) your contact information; (e) a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and (f) a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in your notice is accurate and that you are the owner or authorized to act on the owner's behalf. On receipt of a valid notice we will expeditiously remove or disable access to the material.

Counter-notification. If your content was removed and you believe this was a mistake or misidentification, you may send our Designated Agent a counter-notice containing: (a) your signature; (b) identification of the removed material and its prior location; (c) a statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good-faith belief it was removed by mistake or misidentification; and (d) your name, address, and phone number, and a statement consenting to the jurisdiction of the federal court for your district (or, if you are outside the United States, the courts located in Knox County, Tennessee) and to accept service of process from the complainant.

Repeat infringers. We will, in appropriate circumstances and at our discretion, disable and/or terminate the accounts of users who are repeat infringers.

14. Apps obtained from the App Store or Google Play

If you obtained DunceLab from the Apple App Store or Google Play, you acknowledge:

15. Changes and termination

We may update these Terms; if we make material changes, we'll update the "Last updated" date and post the revised version here, and material changes apply going forward. You may stop using DunceLab at any time, and we may suspend or end access that violates these Terms.

16. Disputes and governing law

Talk to us first. If you have a problem, email Contact@SwrlSite.com and we'll try in good faith to resolve it. Most issues can be settled this way.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Tennessee and applicable U.S. federal law, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. For any dispute that isn't resolved informally, you and Swrl LLC agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in Knox County, Tennessee, and each of us waives any right to a jury trial.

Individual claims only. You and Swrl LLC agree to bring claims against each other only in an individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any class or representative action. Any claim must be brought within one year of when it arose, or it is permanently barred — except where the law applicable to you as a consumer requires a longer period, in which case that longer period applies.

None of this removes mandatory consumer protections you have where you live, or your right to bring a qualifying claim in small-claims court.

17. General

Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and Funding Policy incorporated by reference, are the entire agreement between you and Swrl LLC about DunceLab and supersede any prior understanding. This does not exclude any liability for, or remedy in respect of, anything we have stated to you that turns out to be false or misleading.

Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, it will be modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable, or if it cannot be, severed; the remaining provisions stay in full effect.

No waiver. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of it.

Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our consent. We may assign them, in whole or in part, including in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets.

Force majeure. We are not liable for any delay or failure to perform caused by events beyond our reasonable control (including outages of Railway, Google, Anthropic, or Stripe, network failures, or acts of government).

Survival. Sections 6 (content you submit and feedback), 8 (supporting DunceLab), 9 (ownership and intellectual property), 10 (disclaimers), 11 (limitation of liability), 12 (indemnification), 13 (copyright and DMCA), 16 (disputes and governing law), and this Section 17 survive any termination of these Terms or your account.

No third-party beneficiaries, except as expressly stated for Apple and Google in Section 14.

Notices. We may give you notice by posting in the app or by email to the address on your account; you consent to receiving notices and other communications electronically.

Headings are for convenience only.

18. Contact

Questions about these Terms — contact Swrl LLC: