Zelda Game Inspires Engineering Course, Research Paper
Zelda Game Inspires Engineering Course, Research Paper
Ryan Sochol’s “A Link to Machine Design” mechanical engineering course is returning to the University of Maryland for its second year.
When University of Maryland professor Ryan D. Sochol first played the top-selling Nintendo game The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, it didn’t take long for him to recognize similarities between the game’s building tasks and his own research in 3D printing and SolidWorks assembly—and the potential to use that connection as a tool for teaching.
The game follows the traditional Legend of Zelda franchise story (protagonist Link searches for Princess Zelda while preventing antagonist Ganondorf from destroying the fictional world of Hyrule). But Tears of the Kingdom differs greatly from all other Zelda games in its building mechanics and physics. Link’s explorations rely heavily on machine design and engineering to assemble aerial, ground, and aquatic vehicles, among a multitude of other quests.
In May 2023, Sochol pitched the concept of leveraging the game for teaching undergraduate students computer-aided design (CAD) and engineering software to the UMD Mechanical Engineering department chair at the time, Bala Balachandran. His syllabus was approved, and the course, “The Legend of Zelda: A Link to Machine Design,” launched in Fall 2023, just a few months after the game’s release.
“Initially, there were three different projects,” Sochol said. “The first was to understand how the different machine elements work in the game,” he explained, citing motorized propellers as one of the components he wanted to include. Understanding energy usage and differences from the real world were also aims of the project.
The second project involved building a transforming vehicle. “Basically, it has to have a land-based mode, and it has to be bio-inspired,” Sochol said, adding that the robotic vehicle could be a biped or quadruped, but had to transform into a second mode that could swim in the water.
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“And then there was a third project that was an aerial catapult—it had to fly to a certain height and then catapult something through a ring,” he said. “That was really difficult, and I took it out of my class after the first semester.”
Students were assigned to teams in a classroom set up with six TVs, Nintendo Switches, Pro Controllers, and Tears of the Kingdom game cartridges purchased through department funds.
“I'm paying more for a one-year [SolidWorks] license on one computer than for all of those Switches combined, so there's a cost savings element that I wasn’t anticipating,” Sochol shared.
Tears of the Kingdom features a simplified CAD assembly interface called “Ultrahand,” comparable to the “Assembly” module of SolidWorks CAD software, in which separate components can be connected to one another.
“In real CAD, you have more precision in terms of exactly where you mate one component to the next, whereas the game has an automated mating system,” Sochol said, describing the snapping algorithm used in the game interface that makes joining parts more intuitive. “But outside of that level of customization, you can prototype and test really wild combinations in an instant, which I don’t have in other software,” he said.
Examples of the wide range of machine parts and structural components available in the game for building vehicles, robots, and other types of machines include “propellers, motorized (and nonmotorized) wheels, rockets, springs, gliders, hot air balloons, stabilizers, as well as numerous additional elements.” A constraint, however, is the game’s limit of up to 21 elements for constructing a single machine, setting a boundary on the complexity.
Another point of comparison is the unique energy depletion dynamics that various machine elements exhibit. “In the game, if you use one [motorized] wheel, it uses a certain amount of power. But if you add another wheel, that second wheel only adds half of the power usage,” Sochol explained. “Now, in the real world, if you plug in two lights, it’s going to use double the energy. But in this [game], there’s a benefit of scale. If you have four wheels, it uses less energy on a per wheel basis or per motor basis.”
“Obviously, there’s some difference in terms of the physics of the game and some of the energy usage of the different components,” Sochol said. “But overall, I felt like this is something that could be used for engineering education.”
In June 2024, Sochol co-authored a paper, “An Exploration of Game-Based Learning in Enhancing Engineering, Design, and Robotics Education via The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom,” on his findings in game-based learning and evaluation of the efficacy of the course. “There does need to be more science to it, to figure out exactly why it works.”
The reception from students was overall positive, and the course attracted Zelda fans as well as those who had never played any of the games before. Combining gamification, hands-on application, competition, and collaboration contributed to general excitement and enjoyment.
“The biggest impact this course has had on me was that it offered me a different approach to machine design, allowing me to more easily think about constructing mechanical systems as a sum of the components rather than the (far more complex) whole,” said one student who took the course.
Another student shared that “it felt like I was actually experiencing an engineer’s job firsthand by doing calculations, designing, building, and even going back to square one and starting over.”
Since the game’s May 2023 release with record-breaking sales, Tears of the Kingdom fans have flooded the internet with videos of their most imaginative creations and craziest inventions, with top TOTK builds lists popping up all over the internet.
“The number of combinations from a programming perspective is bonkers—there’s an incredibly broad range of designs people have been able to prototype and demonstrate in the game,” Sochol said, adding that a recent “Big Kitten” contribution to the subreddit group Hyrule Engineering was a prime example of just how far gamers can push the machine design elements.
The Hyrule Engineering club is in the top 1 percent of Reddit communities with more than 190,000 members, making it unlikely that the hype will die out anytime soon—despite the announcement of the next game in the beloved franchise, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. Releasing later this month, the newest installment will be a departure from Tears of the Kingdom and all the Zelda games before it, in that Princess Zelda will finally be the fully playable main character in her own franchise for the first time in 38 years.
Sochol stated that Tears of the Kingdom is arguably the highest-profile video game that could be readily leveraged for game-based learning in engineering curricula. “It’s this game that is wildly popular, that happens to rely significantly on what I would consider to be true mechanical engineering. Part of it is being able to recognize that opportunity when it presents itself.”
“Playing it feels like engineering education. Like, I want my kids to play this because they’re going to get really good at basically SolidWorks assembly or just CAD assembly processes,” Sochol said.
The game follows the traditional Legend of Zelda franchise story (protagonist Link searches for Princess Zelda while preventing antagonist Ganondorf from destroying the fictional world of Hyrule). But Tears of the Kingdom differs greatly from all other Zelda games in its building mechanics and physics. Link’s explorations rely heavily on machine design and engineering to assemble aerial, ground, and aquatic vehicles, among a multitude of other quests.
In May 2023, Sochol pitched the concept of leveraging the game for teaching undergraduate students computer-aided design (CAD) and engineering software to the UMD Mechanical Engineering department chair at the time, Bala Balachandran. His syllabus was approved, and the course, “The Legend of Zelda: A Link to Machine Design,” launched in Fall 2023, just a few months after the game’s release.
A Link to Machine Design: Syllabus
Following a successful first year, Sochol’s course has returned to the university for Fall 2024—with some tweaks to the project-based syllabus.“Initially, there were three different projects,” Sochol said. “The first was to understand how the different machine elements work in the game,” he explained, citing motorized propellers as one of the components he wanted to include. Understanding energy usage and differences from the real world were also aims of the project.
The second project involved building a transforming vehicle. “Basically, it has to have a land-based mode, and it has to be bio-inspired,” Sochol said, adding that the robotic vehicle could be a biped or quadruped, but had to transform into a second mode that could swim in the water.
Discover the Benefits of ASME Membership
“And then there was a third project that was an aerial catapult—it had to fly to a certain height and then catapult something through a ring,” he said. “That was really difficult, and I took it out of my class after the first semester.”
Students were assigned to teams in a classroom set up with six TVs, Nintendo Switches, Pro Controllers, and Tears of the Kingdom game cartridges purchased through department funds.
“I'm paying more for a one-year [SolidWorks] license on one computer than for all of those Switches combined, so there's a cost savings element that I wasn’t anticipating,” Sochol shared.
Tears of the Kingdom vs. CAD Software
In his recently published paper, Sochol cited key game features as being particularly useful for game-based learning in engineering education, despite some key differences in real world application.Tears of the Kingdom features a simplified CAD assembly interface called “Ultrahand,” comparable to the “Assembly” module of SolidWorks CAD software, in which separate components can be connected to one another.
“In real CAD, you have more precision in terms of exactly where you mate one component to the next, whereas the game has an automated mating system,” Sochol said, describing the snapping algorithm used in the game interface that makes joining parts more intuitive. “But outside of that level of customization, you can prototype and test really wild combinations in an instant, which I don’t have in other software,” he said.
Examples of the wide range of machine parts and structural components available in the game for building vehicles, robots, and other types of machines include “propellers, motorized (and nonmotorized) wheels, rockets, springs, gliders, hot air balloons, stabilizers, as well as numerous additional elements.” A constraint, however, is the game’s limit of up to 21 elements for constructing a single machine, setting a boundary on the complexity.
Another point of comparison is the unique energy depletion dynamics that various machine elements exhibit. “In the game, if you use one [motorized] wheel, it uses a certain amount of power. But if you add another wheel, that second wheel only adds half of the power usage,” Sochol explained. “Now, in the real world, if you plug in two lights, it’s going to use double the energy. But in this [game], there’s a benefit of scale. If you have four wheels, it uses less energy on a per wheel basis or per motor basis.”
“Obviously, there’s some difference in terms of the physics of the game and some of the energy usage of the different components,” Sochol said. “But overall, I felt like this is something that could be used for engineering education.”
Gamification for Education
In June 2024, Sochol co-authored a paper, “An Exploration of Game-Based Learning in Enhancing Engineering, Design, and Robotics Education via The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom,” on his findings in game-based learning and evaluation of the efficacy of the course. “There does need to be more science to it, to figure out exactly why it works.”The reception from students was overall positive, and the course attracted Zelda fans as well as those who had never played any of the games before. Combining gamification, hands-on application, competition, and collaboration contributed to general excitement and enjoyment.
“The biggest impact this course has had on me was that it offered me a different approach to machine design, allowing me to more easily think about constructing mechanical systems as a sum of the components rather than the (far more complex) whole,” said one student who took the course.
Another student shared that “it felt like I was actually experiencing an engineer’s job firsthand by doing calculations, designing, building, and even going back to square one and starting over.”
The Future of Hyrule Engineering
Since the game’s May 2023 release with record-breaking sales, Tears of the Kingdom fans have flooded the internet with videos of their most imaginative creations and craziest inventions, with top TOTK builds lists popping up all over the internet.“The number of combinations from a programming perspective is bonkers—there’s an incredibly broad range of designs people have been able to prototype and demonstrate in the game,” Sochol said, adding that a recent “Big Kitten” contribution to the subreddit group Hyrule Engineering was a prime example of just how far gamers can push the machine design elements.
Big Kitten
byu/kmarkow inHyruleEngineering
The Hyrule Engineering club is in the top 1 percent of Reddit communities with more than 190,000 members, making it unlikely that the hype will die out anytime soon—despite the announcement of the next game in the beloved franchise, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. Releasing later this month, the newest installment will be a departure from Tears of the Kingdom and all the Zelda games before it, in that Princess Zelda will finally be the fully playable main character in her own franchise for the first time in 38 years.
Sochol stated that Tears of the Kingdom is arguably the highest-profile video game that could be readily leveraged for game-based learning in engineering curricula. “It’s this game that is wildly popular, that happens to rely significantly on what I would consider to be true mechanical engineering. Part of it is being able to recognize that opportunity when it presents itself.”
“Playing it feels like engineering education. Like, I want my kids to play this because they’re going to get really good at basically SolidWorks assembly or just CAD assembly processes,” Sochol said.
Sarah Alburakeh is a strategic content editor.
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