A Fast Track

This paper discusses the use of video game in teaching mechanical engineering students. The course teaches students how engineering computation and simulation work. Students learn how to get computers to run various mathematical procedures. When they fire up their computers, students see a fairly standard gaming image: a race car and a track. They quickly learn that they will have to program the system to get the car to obey their commands. They start small and at first, they do not even have steering wheels or pedals to control their vehicles. Within a few commands, they can get their car to go straight but then the track turns and they crash into the wall. There are certain types of calculations they have to learn, and they get better and better as the semester goes on, until at the end they're doing sophisticated calculations.