Issues in engineering courses for virtual prototyping

Application of advanced computer methods, tools, and systems revealed new demands for the education of engineers in university courses. This paper analyses the new integrated style of engineering activities where increasing proportion of product prototyping is done in virtual environments. For engineering, arsenal of modeling and simulation tools is available in virtual prototyping. For higher education, virtual prototyping is new change to bring teaching processes and competences into representative problem solving. Finally, teaching and industrial practice can be integrated in an advanced computer system. Specific demands, possibilities, and challenges for a higher education course in virtual prototyping environment and coordination of problem solving and teaching activities constitute the main contribution of this paper. By using of these results, characteristics of a course are concluded.