MECAPUCP: Interactive Teaching Tool for Mechanism Kinematics

Velis A.; Flores M.; Tokuda T.; Lavayen D.; Hermoza E.; Carrillo E.; Rodríguez J. · Mechanisms and Machine Science (2026) · DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-22270-1_45

Resumen

This paper presents MECAPUCP, an interactive desktop application developed in Python to support the teaching of planar kinematics as a foundational step for Engineering Dynamics, as well as Mechanism and Machine Theory. This tool combines a graphical user interface built with Tkinter, a numerical engine based on vectorized computations in NumPy and root-finding routines in SciPy, and real-time visualization of motion and kinematic variables using Matplotlib. MECAPUCP includes several classical mechanisms such as the slider-crank, four-bar linkage, Whitworth quick-return, to name a few, within a unified workflow for parameter definition, simulation, animation, and analysis. The contributions of this work are as follows: (i) It synthesizes a coherent theoretical framework for teaching kinematic analysis using a single software tool that is closely aligned with lecture content. (ii) It introduces a modular architecture that enables new mechanisms to be added with minimal modifications to the existing code. (iii) It demonstrates how the application can be used by students to verify manual calculations by comparing numerical results with hand-solved kinematic problems. (iv) It provides a practical evaluation tool for assessments or exams, allowing instructors to gauge students’ conceptual understanding through simulation-based tasks. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.

Instituciones: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú