In computational science and engineering, there are five identifiable stages in the computer solution of a problem. The first stage consist in presenting a physical problem. A mathematical model derived for this problem is the second stage. An appropriate solution method is next. The following stage is the implementation in a Fortran program. The final stage is the assessment.
In this chapter we use the modeling of a robotic arm to present the stages of computational science and engineering. The case study considers the kinematics of a robotic arm. We use this opportunity to discuss several ideas about programming in the Fortran 90 language. We will discuss how variables, data types, and assignments are expressed in Fortran. Each of these stages is presented as a separate section is this chapter.