First-year engineering students often find mastering mechanics challenging, which is a crucial component of mechatronics. An Indian university offers a mechatronics course called “Engineering Exploration” to first-year undergraduate students. The course currently employs hands-on experiments and physical models to teach mechanical concepts, providing a practical approach to learning. To adapt to the needs of the current generation of students, the authors designed and developed an Augmented Reality (AR) technology for teaching planar mechanisms. The primary aim of this application is to simplify the learning process for fundamental planar mechanisms through plane detection technology, making complex concepts more accessible and engaging for students. The AR application augments selected planes with 3D models of the mechanical mechanisms. Users can visualize these mechanisms in dynamic motion, rotate them for a comprehensive view, and disassemble them to understand their internal structure. To evaluate the application’s effectiveness, a qualitative approach was used. The app was provided to 40 students taking the course. Preliminary results from a thematic analysis reveal that the application had a positive impact on students. They found the application useful, particularly in terms of visualizing the models, which helped improve their spatial visualization skills.