Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Assoc. Prof. Kirk Martini Wins 2007 Premier Award for Excellence in Engineering Education Courseware
Prof. Kirk Martini has been awarded the 2007 Premier Award for Excellence in Engineering Education Courseware for ARCADE (Arcade: Interactive Non-linear Structural Analysis and Animation) by the National Science Foundation and the engineering education courseware industry.
The Premier Award competition, hosted by the NEEDS/Engineering Pathway digital libraries, recognizes high-quality, non-commercial courseware designed to enhance engineering education. The judges comprised a diverse cross-section of experts in engineering education and interactive media. Industry sponsors of the 2007 award are John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Microsoft Research, Autodesk and TechSmith.
Arcade is a computer program for the simulation and animation of physical structures which uses a physics engine to model structural behavior. The engine models a collection of masses in motion, and can include several potential sources of force, including gravity, viscous drag, surfaces, plus springs connecting the masses. The program performs computations in real time so that models respond instantly to input from the keyboard and mouse with a game-like interface. This approach has been widely used in computer graphics and games, but is new to educational applications.
Jose Gomez, an adjunct faculty member in the University of Virginia’s Department of Civil Engineering and Associate Director of Research at the Virginia Transportation Research Council commented: “Arcade puts into graphical format what words just simply cannot convey. These kids have grown up with sophisticated graphics in their computer games so this is a wonderful educational tool.” And Jim Axley of Yale University’s Department of Architecture said of Arcade: “the value of examining dynamic, material nonlinear, geometric nonlinear, and failure behavior in such a natural, direct way clearly opens up new possibilities for teaching.”
Arcade, along with the courseware finalists, will be distributed on CDs free-of-charge to all deans of engineering schools in the United States. A brief movie that gives an introduction to Arcade is available for viewing online here.
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