Virtual Laboratories in the Teaching of Mechanical Technology

The aim of this article is to familiarise the reader with the issue of virtual laboratories and to demonstrate their possible use on a concrete example. This example deals with the use of virtual laboratories in the teaching of mechanical engineering in high schools and universities. The Covid-19 pandemic has led to significant changes in the teaching process and its organisation. In this period, teaching usually took place online, which was implemented using resources such as Google Classroom or MS Teams. This article presents a sample task -a project on which students of the second and third year of study at a secondary technical school are working. The project has an interdisciplinary character, because during its implementation students apply and further develop skills and knowledge from several subjects, namely physics, mechanics, chemistry and CAD design. The project is dedicated to the design of a pulley casting for a steel rope.