Using gaming and motion simulation to enhance vehicle dynamics education

Engineering educators are faced with an ongoing challenge of creating engaging, studentcentered learning situations in post-secondary education. With the broad availability of visually engaging and fast-paced games, contemporary students can find traditional classroom methods of lecture and guided laboratory experiments limiting. This paper presents a novel methodology that incorporates driving simulation, motion simulation, and educational practices into an engaging, gaming-inspired simulation framework for a vehicle dynamics curriculum. The research places students into a gaming scenario where learning occurs during game play, rather than using a formally structured learning approach to vehicle dynamics. The application of the methodology is demonstrated in the context of an advanced vehicle dynamics course. This paper reports on work done under National Science Foundation grant DUE-0633596 in the Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement program.