We love when we see colleges and high schools offering classes based on pop culture and now we can give a shout out to the University of Maryland as one professor is actually using The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom to teach mechanical engineering!
Ryan Sochol, the University of Maryland’s associate professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Bioinspired Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory, is using the open-world action-adventure game to advance students’ knowledge with machine construction and design.
The class, “The Legend of Zelda: A Link to Machine Design” will leverage various aspects of the game, from its physics to its Rune abilities like Fuse and Ultrahand, to give mechanical engineering students a window into the world of robotics and it looks pretty cool!
Students are apparently paired in teams and given a Nintendo Switch with a physical copy of Tears of the Kingdom and a Pro Controller, which the students can take home during the semester. They then take a machine design challenge, with tests that see teams prototype and construct a transforming, bioinspired, amphibious robotic vehicle for an in-class race. The team with the fastest robot on land and sea wins an A+.
You can learn more about the class below, but it might be timet o head back to college just for this class alone!
Also in case you want to hype yourself up for the day then we'll just leave the launch trailer for The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom, which has a hype as hell saxophone, below!
(Kotaku)