2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

A computer aided design and engineering (CAD, CAE) course was designed to train senior electrical and computer engineering students in the mechanical engineering design process and introduce them to selected relevant topics from machine elements, material science, mechanics, and manufacturing to emphasize practical design considerations like manufacturability, mechanical integrity, and functionality. The course served as a ‘learning through doing and making’ based pedagogical experiment that leveraged the ease-of-use, manufacturing briskness, affordability, and portability of fusion deposition modeling-based 3D printing to teach these topics in an integrated manner within the time constraints of a three-credit-hour course. Couplings between CAD and CAE tools (motion simulation and analysis) and 3D printing were leveraged to reinforce student learnings on topics from machine elements and mechanics, and provide opportunities through project-based assessments to reflect on their design choices and use economically-available design performance results to introduce design refinements.

The course was very well-received by the students who reported that they found it motivating and stimulating, and that it enhanced their knowledge, skills and confidence. The paper presents an overview of the course and summarises experiences, challenges, lessons, recommendations and outcomes from two semesters of its teaching. Integrated and synergistic deployment of suitable pedagogical approaches is found to be very important for the execution of the course; and its resource-intense nature and high student workload requirements appear as potential challenges.