In a recent discussion with a graduate student, it was revealed that this particular student didn't really understand the concept of bending moment until the final quarter of her senior year. This is not to say that she was not successful in her structures classes, because she was. Rather, this story illustrates a common point of consternation for both faculty and students alike: one can be quite proficient at generating solutions to certain classes of problems without understanding what's really going on, and without developing the sort of practical physical intuition that is often crucial to good engineering. And that's why we developed these programs: to create tools focused specifically on helping students and engineers build rich, intuitive understandings of basic structural models.
Are the programs any good?
We're obviously biased, but we can report that earlier versions of these programs have been used in various educational and professional contexts since 1992, and the feedback we have heard has been uniformly positive. Student response at all levels has been particulary strong.
Often educational software is useful for perhaps 2-3 weeks in a particular course, and then that's it. These programs are easy to learn and use (we've had many successful experiences using these tools with kids), so they are useful in the short run, but they also have legs. They can be useful throughout your academic career, regardless of the level you end up at, and in professional contexts, as well.