College course uses Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom to teach machine design and engineering

The teaching staff at the University of Maryland, College Park, has created a new Mechanical Engineering course that leverages The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom to teach undergraduate students machine design and engineering

This course serves as a unique opportunity for students to leverage the CAD assembly interface (i.e., “Ultrahand”), machine elements (e.g., rockets, motorized wheels/propellers, stabilizers, springs), structural components (e.g., beams, plates, adhesives), and sophisticated component- and system-level physics of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on the Nintendo Switch to advance their knowledge and experience in machine design.

Students will execute two course projects that are each based on objective performance targets that will require students to apply machine design principles to balance trade-offs for the addition/placement of machine elements and structural components with energy (i.e., battery) depletion rates.

A portion of the grading is based on live demonstrations of machine performance in silico (i.e., within the video game). Students will also gain experience with soft skills through course deliverables including oral presentations associated with each project/challenge.