"A New Approach for an Undergraduate Mechanics of Materials Course that Integrates Theory, Analysis, Verification and Design"

This paper presents a description of a first undergraduate course in mechanics of materials.Although many of the features of this course have been used by other faculty and presented formally in textbooks, the authors believe they have united them in a way that produces a course that is unique and innovative.The title of the paper includes Theory, Analysis, Verification and Design to emphasize the unification of these four strategic elements.The course leads the student through a traditional exposure to theory, but a non-traditional progressive approach to analysis that uses a modern engineering tool.Introduction of verification develops the student's discipline to question and test 'answers'.If a problem solution can be formulated in general symbolic format, and if specific solutions can then be obtained and carefully verified, the extension from analysis for one set of variables to the design for different sets of specifications can be done quickly and easily with confidence.Three examples are included to demonstrate the approach and one example considers design.