Abstract:

After more than 10 years working as university professors, we detect that Mechanical Engineering students have always difficulty in understanding thermodynamics. One of the subjects is psychrometry (the science of measuring the water-vapor content of the air). This year an improvement was done in thermodynamic courses, the introduction of tablets and smartphones as teaching tools. We believe that these devices connect with them and should take advantage of that.

The use of Mobile Math Technology (MMT) allows students to work in a visual and tactile way the equations used in the course. MMT can play with the variables of the equations to help students reaching the final result. Now students are not passive subjects, now they are part of the process and this is a new experience for them, a role that motivates.

MMT allows you to view, in a clearer form, complex mathematical equations; it is also easier to see how the variation of a parameter affects the final value of the formula. This approach is also applied to other fields of engineering and science as energy efficiency.

Keywords:

Tablet, smartphone, thermal engineering.