Enhancing Programming Skills to Engineering Students Using MeKin2D Modular Kinematics Subroutines

Computer programing is a fundamental discipline taught early in the curriculum to all undergraduate engineering majors. Fewer opportunities exist however for students to practice their programing skills before they graduate. In this paper, a number of computer programing exercises on planar mechanism kinematic simulation given to Mechanical Engineering students at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi are presented. Students are instructed on how to download the MeKin2D subroutines and the Free Pascal Integrated Development Environment (IDE) on their computer. Then they perform, as homework assignments, three exercises using these subroutines. Students' perception on the usefulness of these exercises towards improving their programing skills are then surveyed.