Visualization, freehand drawing, solid modeling, and design in introductory engineering graphics

The first course in the Engineering Technology Department at Western Washington University is Engineering Graphics I, a broad-based introductory graphics class. Furthermore, it no longer makes sense, given the variety of powerful 3-D solid modeling packages available today, to teach students 2-D drafting techniques, either with a T-square or on a computer. Thus we have adopted a new department wide structure for our introductory graphics class that uses art-based freehand drawing techniques along with a nonparametric 3-D solid modeling package to help our students develop basic visualization skills that are transferable to the computer tools they will use in their various disciplines. Because, we also want our students to be designers and problem solvers rather than technical drafters, we are concentrating on developing general skills rather than having them become proficient in a specific software package. Thus for the first seven weeks of the quarter we alternate between using traditional art techniques to teach freehand drawing, and using Rhinoceros(R) to teach basic solid modeling and computer drawing techniques. In the latter part of the class we introduce students to basic rules of technical drawing so that they can properly document their work. In addition, we cover the design process and use individual design projects so that students learn to view drawing and computer modeling as tools in the design process instead of ends in and of themselves. This format is a department from traditional approaches to teaching a first course in Engineering Graphics, and the results of it have been very positive.