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Session 1917

Simulation and Animation of Mechanical Systems to Enhance Student Learning

M. Hoorfar, H. Najjaran, W. L. Cleghorn Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department University of Toronto

Introduction There are many applications in mechanical engineering whose analysis or design procedures not only require tedious computations but also are prone to error so that neither instructors nor students are keen to focus on the details of the subjects. They are not enthusiastic to pursue the lengthy process of the old fashioned designs although widely used in the industry. Thus, they incline to use commercial programs which are more similar to a black box. The use of educational computer programs, on the other hand, could effectively alleviate the problems because students may understand the subject and effects of many parameters involved without wasting their time for repetitive computations. It can also help them to examine the results and track the errors and see where the problems lie.

Educational computer programs are different from commercial ones in many aspects. The educational programs must have a sufficiently generic framework to deal with a large variety of possible options that may or may not be used in real applications. More precisely, commercial software often works in a limited domain whose extremes are well defined for both users and programmers, whereas educational tools should be able to satisfy curious students who naturally prefer to test the programs with irregular examples. Besides, the educational computer program must have an interesting graphical user interface including visualization and animation to motivate the users, and provide ample information and background about the application, pertinent parameters, possible errors, etc. Thus, the development of a useful educational program would be challenging for it requires a deep understanding of the subject, programming, and educational skills.

The Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto has been interested in the development of a series of software programs that can be used by instructors, teaching assistants, and students involved in the undergraduate curricula. The programs are primarily developed for the teaching purposes, but they can be used in distance learning, student projects, research laboratories, and educational workshops. This paper presents

“Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright Ó 2002, American Society for Engineering Education”

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Hoorfar, M., & Najjaran, H., & Cleghorn, W. (2002, June), Simulation And Animation Of Mechanical Systems To Enhance Student Learning Paper presented at 2002 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. 10.18260/1-2--10600