Benefit of an e-learning environment including real and simulated plants for teaching mechanical engineering freshman in programming C

Practical aspects of a lecture are important to increase motivation and performance of students, especially in teaching programming for mechanical engineers. In this paper we present an approach and first experience to include plant programming into the software engineering and programming lectures at the Technische Universität München. To demonstrate common engineering practice and broaden the prospects for exercises this concept is adapted to control simulated systems instead of real hardware programming. The architectural concept for the web based e-learning with real hardware and the co-simulation framework is presented as well as the students' performance.