LEARNING BY DOING IN THE DYNAMICS AND MECHANICAL VIBRATIONS COURSES USING 3D PRINTED EQUIPMENT

Limited resources available to the engineering faculty and students impede student learning and deep understanding of the material that is presented in the dynamics and mechanical vibrations courses. Active learning practices such as learning by doing is an effective way to not only build a solid foundation in knowledge but also help students develop engineering skills. However, these courses are mainly taught in a traditional manner and many students struggle in connecting the theory to its real-world application and lose interest. Although mechanical engineering students get more hands-on opportunities in the laboratories, they take vibrations and control laboratories in the following semesters since vibrations is a pre-requisite for these labs. To address this issue, we designed 3 low-cost, compact, and portable laboratory equipment and fabricated them using 3D printing technology. The first equipment is a 3-pendulum system with different lengths and tip loads that can be utilized in the engineering dynamics course. While the second equipment is a 2 DOF compliant vibration isolator consisting of flexible beams, masses, and a linear actuator, the third equipment is a non-linear cantilever beam to be utilized in the vibrations courses and their associated laboratories.