[R] R for Engineering (Mechanical, Industrial , Civil, etc.)

[Harsh]

Hi useRs,
In trying to take R to engineering undergraduate students, I have been
looking for context that would make R more accessible to the said
audience. Though R is primarily a statistical tool, I would want to
demonstrate the use of R for certain engineering courses (Design of
Machine Elements - gear design, ball bearings, etc.) which would
generate interest in it and provide students a way to extend its use
to more "statistically" oriented courses like Quality Control (control
charts, t-tests, drawing normal probability plots, etc.).

For example: Engineering Design has a topic that requires the solving
of a set of equations to arrive at the appropriate parameters of a
feasible gear design (diameter, number of teeth, material
specification etc.). This would require the set of equations and other
information to be available in a package, with added functionality to
plot machine elements, reliability curves for various materials (steel
of different carbon compositions, and such) and other
visualisations/computations that are required for such studies.

If any R user has employed R to teach engineering courses (which do
not require much statistics), I would highly appreciate your feedback
and insights gained from such an undertaking.
I am not trying to dilute R's primary focus in being a statistical
tool, but I would like to make R available to an audience who do not
deal with a lot of statistics.

Of course, there are other tools for engineering drawing, circuitry
design and such others, but maybe there is a niche area (somewhere in
between core engineering and statistics) which is yet untapped, and R
"might" be of help there.

Thank you.

Regards
Harsh Singhal