A Digital Library for Learning and Teaching Kinematics

1. A Digital Library for Learning and Teaching Kinematics John M. Saylor Director of Collection Development National Science Digital Library Cornell University jms1@cornell.edu

2. The Kinematic Models for Design Digital Library (KMODDL) is a multimedia resource for teaching the principles of kinematics (the geometry of motion) and the history and theory of mechanisms and machines.

3. The core of KMODDL is the Reuleaux Collection of Mechanisms and Machines at Cornell University (An ASME National Historical Collection). Franz Reuleaux (1829-1905) developed a system for classifying kinematic mechanisms and created hundreds of models to embody his basic machine elements.

4. Cornell purchased a set of Reuleaux’s models in 1882 for use in teaching engineering students about the kinematics of machines. The Reuleaux Collection at Cornell’s Sibley College of Mechanical Engineering in a 1885 illustration.

5. More than 220 models are still held by Cornell’s Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. At Cornell today, Reuleaux’s models are used in the teaching of design, dynamics, robotics, art, and architecture, and historical research.

6. KMODDL provides: • still and interactive moving images of kinematic mechanisms, with systematic descriptions • computer simulations of mathematical relationships associated with the mechanisms’ movements, • Key historical and contemporary texts related to the history and theory of machines, • tutorials that employ the models and simulations in the classroom at the undergraduate, high school, and middle school levels, • stereolithographic files for “printing” working physical replicas.

7. KMODDL began as a collaborative project of CUL librarians and professors in Cornell’s Departments of Mathematics, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Computer Science. Initially funded (2002-2004) by a 2-year grant from the National Science Digital Library (NSDL), a program of the U.S. National Science Foundation to build shared digital collections of materials and services in support of science education at all levels.

8. KMODDL is an autonomous collection housed at Cornell University Library and is also searchable through the shared NSDL main portal (http://nsdl.org). KMODDL shares descriptive metadata with the NSDL central metadata repository via the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) Protocol for Metadata Harvesting.

9. In the fall of 2004 KMODDL received an 18 month $500K collaborative research grant from IMLS to expand the mechanism collection with MoS (Boston) and: •to research the potential of rapid prototyping (“3D printing”) technology for sharing and teaching with physical artifacts, and • advance knowledge about the description, storage, delivery, and preservation of 3D objects in digital libraries by producing a white paper addressing questions of taxonomy, description, access provision, asset management, and preservation for 3D digital objects of various formats

10. Representing Kinematic Motion How to represent 3-dimensional motion in a two-dimensional medium? • interactive photographic animations • abstract computer simulations

11. Interactive photographic animations (QTVR) A series of still images allows user to control the stages of kinematic motion: A sequence of snapshots illustrates the motion of a spiral pump as the user slides the mouse.

12. Computer simulations An engineer / computer scientist in the KMODDL group has developed a number of kinematic simulators to illustrate the geometric motion abstractly. The simulator allows users to interact spontaneously with the machine.

13. expanding to include more collections and new formats • current focus on 3D printing technology stems from the project team’s understanding of this technology as one that converts between information and artifact, thus exemplifying an intersection of library and museum work. • 3D printing technology - means for non-destructive exchange of working replicas of valuable or rare physical objects between museum and library collections, or for direct dissemination to users for educational and research purposes.

14. Reading and Writing Kinematics KMODDL includes the full-text of resources on kinematics and the history and theory of mechanisms: • historical books, (NSF Funds) • original scholarship by project team members and others • tutorials that show ways of using the collection’s resources in the classroom • additional Grant of $19K received from CUL to digitize 14 titles (4K+ pages) rare texts

15. KMODDL electronic books: 50 scanned - OCR’d titles from the 15th -20th centuries. Georg Andreas Böckler, Theatrum Machinarum Novum (1661) A. B. W. Kennedy, The Mechanics of Machinery (1886) Ferdinand Redtenbacher, Die Bewegungs-Mechanismen (1866) Franz Reuleaux, The Kinematics of Machinery (1876) Robert Henry Thurston, The Animal as a Machine and a Prime Motor, and the Laws of Energetics (1894) Robert Willis, Principles of Mechanism (1841) …

16. Curriculum materials and activities The KMODDL team is producing tutorials to aid instructors in using the digital library materials in the classroom. KMODDL includes tutorials for: • University courses in mathematics, engineering design, and history of technology • High school mathematics and technology • Middle school mathematics and technology

17. “Printing” in Three Dimensions K-MODDL is experimenting with rapid-prototyping technology to reproduce physical models as working 3D “prints” from digital files. original Reuleaux model rapid-prototype model

19. More Information: •KMODDL website http://kmoddl.library.cornell.edu