Our objective for the first class is to get familiar with the similarities and differences between the terms presented in this writeup. After our first class, you should be able to identify each of the terms and make judgements based on the context in which they are used. Your understanding of the terms is crucial, not only for this class in mechanisms, but for many other classes in Mechanical Engineering. Kinetics Mechanics is the study of variations in motion and forces, of various objects, over different periods of time. Statics is the study of forces for stationary objects, i.e., when the time period under consideration is very small.
Dynamics is the study of variations in the forces and motion of objects over large periods of time.
Kinematics is the study of motion of objects, without any consideration of the forces acting on the objects. Kinetics is the study of forces on objects in motion. During this course, we will be studying the statics, kinematics, and kinetics of mechanisms. A mechanism is a device whose primary purpose is to transform motion, i.e., convert an input motion into a desired output motion, while transforming energy. A structure is a load bearing device.