Through Engineers’ Eyes – final thoughts

Congratulations on reaching the end of the course!

This has been the most important week of the course. You saw how to analyse rigid bodies that are ‘planar’ – that is, two-dimensional, flat. You can often solve three dimensional problems with two dimensional models – the design task demonstrated that.

Of course you needed to understand twisting effects. We used various terms – moments, couples and torque. You’ve probably got that sorted out by now.

FBDs are even more important with rigid bodies, and the interactions you must represent are more complicated. Luckily there are standard methods for this – ‘conventional interactions’.

And so, you used equilibrium to find forces in planar rigid bodies. This is the basic capability that this course offers. By calling upon Newton’s 3rd law you extended this capacity to ‘two dimensional statics of systems of rigid bodies’ – in your case a folding washing line.

That’s it. You can now find unknown forces in systems of two-dimensional rigid bodies. We hope that you have enjoyed learning about Engineering Mechanics through experiment, analysis and design, and that you are getting used to your ‘engineers’ eyes’.

If you did you might like to continue with the sequel Through Engineers’ Eyes: expanding the vision, where you can learn to find centres of gravity, understand friction, calculate aerodynamic drag and get insights into collisions.

We’ve enjoyed following your discussions and other contributions. Now we would like your overall impressions of the course in the comments section.

If this course has inspired you to consider further academic study in the field of Mechanical Engineering check out the UNSW Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering website for more details.

We wish you all the very best.

Gangadhara Prusty and Robin Ford