EJMT Abstract

The paper introduces several examples of the utilization of the computer algebra system Maple in selected courses at the University of South Bohemia. These examples are devoted to the notion of geometric transformations and they span the range from planar mappings like congruences, affine maps and inversion to the kinematics of serial robot-manipulators, specifically to the forward and inverse kinematic problems. We will see that the kinematics of simple mechanisms - at the beginning we can restrict ourselves to planar mechanisms - offers real and attractive problems, the solving of which require mostly basic knowledge of linear algebra, geometry, differential geometry and methods of solving systems of nonlinear algebraic equations.