new approach to teaching engineering drawing to engineering students

SHARAD MARATHE: Good morning, everybody. My name is Sharad Marathe, and along with me is my co-presenter Dr. Rio D'Souza, who is the principal of St. Joseph Engineering College in Mangaluru. And today we are going to cover something very interesting with you and that is a new approach to teaching engineers, drawing to engineering students.

Now, what we will do is we will set the stage by covering what is normally done in teaching engineering drawing, and then go into what is new that we are doing with it.

So what is it that is normally done? Is the students are basically taught with 2D projections and asked to visualize what an object looks like in 3D. Many of them find this very difficult. And too much emphasis is placed on theory and not enough on the real world applications.

So another issue that comes up is what is called circuits branches, which is the computer science, electronics, communications, engineering, et cetera. They find this even more difficult because they don't see the relevance of wanting to learn engineering drawings. So as it is, that makes it difficult for them.

Now, what is it that we're doing different? First of all, we are going to start with 3D modeling using the Autodesk latest product called Fusion 360. And the students will automatically get the 2D views of it in the Fusion 360. And that makes it very easy for them to visualize what's going on.

Now, the advantage of that is that the students can concentrate on what I call the more multidisciplinary types of problems, understand, relate to it, and et cetera. And the entire teaching is problem based. So it is not theory. And the hands on experiential learning is also an important facet of what we're doing. Incidentally, all of these points are emphasized in the new National Education policy.

Now, one of the things that we start out in this e-learning course that has been developed is using examples. In this case, it's a very simple example of a screw jack. All right. And the students will work with a few parts out of this device and get the concepts of how to build 3D models. And from that, how to get 2D projections. So that what I talked about in the beginning is that they have difficulty going from 2D to 3D. So when you go from 3D to 2D they already know what the object is going to look like. And that makes it much, much easier. At least, that was our hypothesis.

So therefore, the novelty is that the application, first of all, is a new method for use by the faculty and the students. And once the new method is accepted by the world, as we know it, in India, then organizations, such as all India Council for Technical Education, can also use it in their faculty development programs for both engineering colleges and polytechnic faculty.

Now, the other novel part is the 3D modeling, as I said just a couple of minutes ago, is using 3D modeling to teach all the concepts right from the beginning, from day one. All right. So we throw them into it and let them understand what's going on, visualize, and let them participate.

Another thing that happens is the industry is using tools like 3D modeling, and certainly, products like Fusion 360, so these students now picture that they are-- the first year students, when they go into and finish the four years of college, they would already be familiar with tools that the industry is using. And that makes it big difference for them rather than coming at it with just theoretical understanding of something.

Now, another novel aspect is the technology. We are using the multimedia technology because today's young people are more used to multimedia, videos, audio. They're into a lot of this. And here we are going to be presenting the e-learning content as well as the videos, animations, audio, et cetera. So make the learning more interesting.

And the pedagogical approach, which is the methodology of teaching, is also something that is the very problem based and more immersive learning, hands on learning. That is the novel part that we are looking at. Now, how do we do this?

So we present all the content using a learning management system that is developed, it so happens that my company, Universal Technical Systems, and we have a product called the UTS Learning Center. And what this basically does is it has got a built in learning management system. And that makes everything coordinated. I will show a couple of screenshots of it, as well. But it makes it very, very convenient for students to use.

The LMS is developed by, like I said, my company Universal Technical Systems, and it's a part of a family of companies. We are mainly based in America. That's the headquarters, but also offices in the United Kingdom and two offices in India. And in addition to this, UTS Learning Center, we also have other products like mathematical modeling software, TK Solver, Knowledge Management System, like Galaxy, et cetera.

Now, as I said a minute ago, here are a couple of screenshots. This is the first one from the UTS Learning Center. And in it you will see on the left hand side sort of a table of contents, and the students can jump into any topic that they want, randomly as they wish, or they can go from one screen to the other by using the arrow keys, forward or reverse.

Here is another example of the screenshot. And again, what we do is on the screen you have text. There will be graphics, and there will be links to videos and audio, and et cetera. So the entire information is organized in a very cohesive way.

Now, the most important part that we want to share with you is what do the students and faculty think about what we are doing? And we spent a lot of time getting that feedback, and I'm going to share the results of it with you. And we have three different groups through which we tested this content and to get their reaction.

Group one is the students who have already gone through this course using the conventional method of teaching and learning. And they've just finished that course, so we put them-- about 18 of these students-- we've put them in front of the computers in a classroom and gave them an overview, and have them experiment with it, and got their feedback.

And we were very pleased that they found that A, there were some of the issues, the problems, that they have with visualization has gone away. They found it very easy to visualize. They also found and told us that it provides an answer for them as to why am I learning this, because otherwise, they are being taught a course, and their feeling is OK. I will learn what I have to learn to get through.

Now here, they can relate to it. And they found this to be very, very effective. And we were very pleased to get this kind of feedback.

And on a statistical basis, we asked them to grade what they saw. And on a one to four scale, four before being that this is the greatest gift to mankind, and one, that means what are we doing here? And you will see in this graphic that almost 60% of the students gave us a four out of four. And the remainder said it was either good or acceptable. So in a sense we got no negatives out of it. And this, again, was to us we very satisfying.

In addition to this numerical score, we also got their specific qualitative comments back. And here are some of their significant responses that we got from them. A, found this very helpful. For both getting the concepts in terms of the points, the lines, the planes, and et cetera, to understand. Otherwise, they used to find this very difficult. The 3D models made it much easier for them.

The concept they felt were easy to understand and easy to-- the illustrations they found were quite attractively presented. They said that it helps in the developing the, rather, describing everything with a reference to real life case study type problems. And that leads to better communication of design ideas.

It took some time for a few of the students to get the hang of it. But once they got started with it, then they were quite comfortable with that. They found that the Autodesk product Fusion 360 was very easy to learn even for the beginners, and I'm sure that our friends in Autodesk would be very happy to hear that.

These students also said that this method is helpful and intuitive for anyone learning CAD as a beginner. Right? And again, these things help you overcome the difficulties. Here is some more of the observations that they shared with us. They felt that the content was well-balanced. It was practical. Visualization was easy, and very high percentage of people telling us that. And almost 100 said that they really like the quality. And our entire emphasis was on the content was on the quality and ease of learning and ease of understanding.

Now, we then took this further to group two. In the group two was brand new students who have yet to start their engineering education. They were enrolled, and this would be their first courses that they would take. Now, this is a smaller number of people because the classes have not started as yet. And we had 12 students in this class. We did the same thing with them like in the group one. We put them in front of the computers in a classroom and got them started and got their reactions.

Once again, the comments from these people, they like the videos that were presented because it made it very easy for them to understand. And like I said earlier, today's generation is more into videos and things anyway, multimedia. So this fitted in well for them.

The other part of it was that the content was well illustrated, and they found it very easy to use that in their life later on. That was their perception.

Some more from a statistical basis. We've got a little bit different breakdown of this than we did for that group one. But even then what you have here is a little over 40% gave the highest marks of four out of four. Similar number was three out of four. And a small number that says they kind of found it a little difficult, challenging, but really nobody disliked it.

So here is some more of the statistical analysis regarding when we pose them the question that were they able to grasp the topic at hand and visualize the concepts easily. Here now, so you're seeing almost 60% of them gave very high marks. About 17% each were in the level three out of four and some two out of four. And a rather small number of the students that says it was a bit difficult.

In similarly, the observations and a balance aspect, they felt that the theoretical concepts and the practical things was very well balanced. They found it was practical. And the real life examples that were presented to them were motivating for them.

And again, a fairly high percentage, almost 80%, said that to the quality of it was very good as well.

Now, this is something very interesting. And that is the group three. And group three were the faculty members in different branches of engineering. And we had about 20 of them. Again, we put them in front of the computer, just like the students, and to get their reaction.

To be honest with you, that we were a little apprehensive what the reaction of the faculty might be because they were used to teaching things in a certain way. But we were delighted to get their response. And their response was that they felt that the engineering content provided for more effective, self based learning by the students. And the concept, the methodology, was teaching, they felt was very effective in a pedagogical sense. And the visualization aspects they also thought are very good as we present it.

Now, this is something very revealing. Is that the observations when they were asked about what did they think overall as the concept in A, when they started engineering themselves, or when they're teaching, and here again, you'll see 60% of the gave us a four of four. And the remaining 40% with three out of four. Again, very good scores in terms of statistical sense.

Other key observations that the faculty felt the content was fairly well balanced between theory and practice. A very high number, 94%, said that it was very practical. 70% or so said the visualization was very effective. And again, they gave us very good feedback on the quality part of it.

Some of the other observations that they shared with us that they felt that the content was very proper in terms of the flow for the students, as well as the going forward between the theory and the learning by doing aspects was very good in their mind.

They felt that the graphical design and the modeling can be understood easily with the approach and the visualization came out quite good.

The drawback that normally comes in a classroom teaching, they felt that we overcame that part of it quite well. And the interdisciplinary concept that we brought in-- So regardless of whether you're a civil engineer, mechanical engineer, et cetera, there was always something that you could relate to. And that too is something that is emphasized by the National Education Policy. And they felt that overall content and the models were very well developed.

So all in all, I can say that this was very well received.

Now, at this juncture, I would like to request my co-presenter, Dr. Rio D'Souza, as I said, he's the principal of St. Joseph Engineering College in Mangaluru, and Rio has been very, very instrumental in helping us take this forward, guiding and mentoring his faculty colleagues, and et cetera. So Rio, it is all yours.

RIO D'SOUZA: Thanks, Sharad. Hello, everyone. We are St. Joseph Engineering College Manguluru. I have been working very closely with the Sharad and his company UTS in trying to develop this new approach to engineering drawing. We have worked with our faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Six of the faculty have contributed a lot, and they have used Fusion 360 by Autodesk. And with this we have been trying to build this new approach.

Now, we have kept the syllabus more or less the same. Only thing is that we have introduced Fusion 360 in the beginning so that 3D modeling can be done by the students right from day one. And we initially now, in this presentation will be showing some of the content that we have developed for the first two modules. Though we have known by now finished all the five modules that are there. These are the three modules on the screen, and then there are two other modules, the isometric projections and the development of lateral surfaces.

Though all the content is already into the learning management system, we will be focusing on showing you some of the aspects of the first two modules that we have in the learning management system.

Now, what we have done is in order to bring in the passion that the students should have for learning engineering drawing, we have introduced an impetus video. So in this impetus video, students are able to see how all-terrain vehicle is designed and how it is the model.

And this is something which happens in most of the engineering colleges. Many of them have a [INAUDIBLE] chapters, and students work on these things. So junior students are able to see the senior students working on such projects, and that helps them to relate to this content in a better way.

We are also introduced very practical exercises in the learning management system. And some of the things we have done, for example, is where you come to the projection of points, we talk about a tennis ball kept on a table. Now, a tennis ball, of course, has a finite diameter, but if you go on shrinking that, then you end up with a point in space, and then it becomes easy for the student to see how this point gets projected onto the planes.

So they work on similar problems, but the problems are posed in a more practical or more real-world manner. So with this particular problem, the solution that they arrive is the same, that they get the orthographic projection, which is shown on the next slide. The final solution, which otherwise they would have probably found it a little difficult to arrive at. In this case, they will find that it is easier because they start with a real world problem. It becomes easier for them to picture it, and we have found that when we ask the students to give feedback and they were using the system, they could easily do this within a few steps.

So this is one of the things. Other things that we have done is we have used real world machine parts, and we asked them to develop the isometric views. And for this we provide the 3D model, and then they work on this, and they try to develop the models that are required. And here again, they find that it is much easier and much simpler than the experience that the students used to have before.

So this is something which has helped a lot in making the learning of engineering drawing much more easier and more relatable for the students.

Now, what are the implications of this new approach? One of the things is that we feel that the students will be more job ready. And the feedback also has given us this particular insight that right from day one, when they are on the job floor, they will be working on similar concepts and similar things. So they'll be more job ready.

The other thing is that many of the exercises are from civil engineering, maybe the construction-- the drawings of house, or maybe the layout of a PCB. Such examples have been included in the material. So multidisciplinary knowledge is something which will be readily available and students will be working, will be able to work together, on such themes. The other thing is the availability of the software platform.

The software platform, which is an industry standard, which they will getting a lot of competency on this, will help them to be more ready for the job, which they are going to have later when they join the companies. So this is something which is really a great boon for them. And we plan to scale this up. And to talk about the scaling plans, I will be handing you over back to Sharad. So thank you very much for the opportunity. Sharad, over to you.

SHARAD MARATHE: Yeah. Thanks, Dr. Rio. So as Dr. Rio said, that we will speak for a couple of minutes regarding how we want to take this forward because this is the course that is taught to all the students in engineering colleges in India as well as polytechnics. So you're looking at altogether about 8,000 plus institutions all over India.

So where we've tested this at St. Joseph Engineering College. Now, St. Joseph is part of a group of 15 colleges that we are working closely with in terms of what I would call re-engineering of engineering education, if you want to think of it that way. But to basically, for the implementation of the National Education Policy 2020.

So the next thing we want to do is repeat what we did in St. Joseph in terms of the feedback to the other engineering colleges, same group, one group, two group, three. Students and a faculty type of people give their feedback. And then based upon this broader feedback, if we have to fine tune and revise the content, we will go ahead and do that because that's a good part of having an electronic version of this product, that we can react rather quickly.

And once this is done, we will work with all India Council for Technical Education to see if we can collaborate with them to help take this further in the faculty development programs for engineering colleges and polytechnics.

So we will also continue doing further development work for things like later on other courses content, such as taking our TK Solver Mathematical Modeling Platform and connect it to the graphical modeling platform of 3D Fusion 360 and provide a knowledge base engineering paradigm.

So to summarize, this is what we have covered with you so far. And that is, we are very encouraged with the response of all the stakeholders, the students, the faculty, and both types of groups of students. The content it will be revised on an ongoing basis based upon the feedback. We found that the students are very motivated, which to us was the most important aspect.

Then, it also tells us that a new approach to teaching engineering education covering engineering is possible. So without changing syllabus much, we can still do quite a lot, and that is usually some of the concern that people have. And the potential for enhancing the employability of the fresh graduates because that is the Holy Grail. That is what we are really looking for is getting them job ready, and we think that this plays a big role in that.

And this, again, ties up very well with the National Education policy, which emphasizes all of these aspects. And many of the engineering colleges are now involved in doing that.

So I want to thank Autodesk for facilitating this presentation by us. We look forward to continuing to get feedback from many of you. Please, do get in touch with us with your ideas, suggestions, and et cetera, because we want this thing to be a continuous improvement process. Thank you again, and have a good afternoon, everybody.