Does Access to Rapid Prototyping Enhance Student Vision-ization?

Abstract

At its core, engineering technical design is the process of taking a concept to creation. In order to achievesuccessful technical design a student must combine their idea or vision of a solution (function) with a visualization of thepart/assembly (form) -- referred to henceforth as vision-ization. Teaching technical design to a large first-year class ofengineering students presents a number of challenges, but perhaps the most significant is the rapid change of the toolsused in engineering technical design. To be clear, the tools themselves are not the challenge, as the students generallyhave no trouble mastering the tools. The challenge lies in the teaching and ultimately the learning objectives; at aUniversity level the fundamental question is what pedagogical benefit does a tool provide without the knowledge to applyit? As the tools have advanced, the students (and the instructors) find themselves further from the design process resultingin course topics perceived as disconnected or without relevance. In 2006 McMaster University's first-year engineeringprogram departed from the traditional method of teaching engineering design, which was heavily focussed on form, toestablish design function as the primary objective of the course. With a yearly enrolment near 1000 students, thescalability of teaching and evaluating design function was implemented using a customized simulation and visualizationtool. The simulation was extended to the logical use of rapid prototyping machines (3D-printers) for physical creation andtesting. This paper will present the author's initial analysis of the link between pure visualization, applied visualization,and success in functional design via rapid prototyping..