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Practical Mechanics For Inventors II: Designing Custom Parts
New
100 students
Practical Mechanics For Inventors II: Designing Custom Parts
Mechanical Design, Strength of Materials, Mechanisms & Material Selection
Created byPedro Portugal
Last updated 10/2026
English
What you'll learn
- Translate functional requirements into mechanical designs while balancing geometry, performance, safety factors, uncertainty, and cost.
- Calculate and evaluate normal, shear, bending, and torsional stresses to identify stress concentrations and potential failure modes.
- Evaluate structural stiffness, elastic deformation, axial and beam deflection, torsional rigidity, and thermal expansion
- Analyze vibration, resonance, damping, dynamic loading, and mechanical mechanisms to understand motion, stability, and reliability.
- Compare metals, polymers, composites, and advanced materials based on strength, stiffness, weight, durability, thermal behavior, and cost.
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Course content
8 sections • 26 lectures • 4h 16m total length
Requirements
- Basic algebra and a general familiarity with physics, forces, and motion are helpful. No prior mechanical engineering, machine design, CAD, programming, or specialized equipment experience is required. The previous entry on this series is recommended but not mandatory
Description
Mechanical engineering goes beyond selecting components. It requires designing custom parts and structures that withstand real loads, maintain dimensional accuracy, and perform reliably under practical operating conditions.
Mechanical Engineering: Practical Mechanics for Inventors takes you deeper into mechanical design, building on the fundamentals of standard components to explore how engineers develop custom structures, analyze their behavior, and make informed design decisions.
You will learn how to translate functional requirements into mechanical designs, evaluate stress and potential failure modes, and understand the relationship between strength, stiffness, and elastic deformation. We will explore bending, torsion, fatigue, buckling, thermal expansion, vibration, resonance, and damping, along with the mechanisms that transform and control motion.
The course also examines material selection, comparing metals, polymers, composites, and advanced materials according to their mechanical properties, thermal behavior, durability, and practical limitations.
Throughout the course, the emphasis is on engineering judgment and real-world trade-offs. Rather than simply calculating whether a component is strong enough, you will learn to consider how geometry, loading, materials, mass, stiffness, and dynamic behavior interact to influence a design's performance and reliability.
Based on my book, Practical Mechanics for Inventors, this course is designed for engineering students, aspiring mechanical designers, makers, and inventors who want to strengthen their practical understanding of mechanical design.
Learn to design custom mechanical parts with purpose, analyze their behavior, and make better engineering decisions.
Who this course is for:
- This course is designed for engineering students, aspiring mechanical engineers, makers, inventors, and anyone interested in practical mechanical design and machine building. It is especially valuable for learners who want to understand how mechanical components work, how to select them correctly, and how individual parts come together in real machines. Beginners are welcome, with only basic algebra and familiarity with forces and motion recommended.