2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Equilibrium of a rigid body in 3D is one of the most important, yet challenging topics for engineering students in Statics. It includes knowing supports and free-body diagrams (FBD) in 3D, having the ability to visualize vectors in 3D, and understanding moments in 3D. The concepts of moment and FBD in 3D are widely used from bridge design in civil engineering to analyzing the aerodynamic forces on plane wings in aerospace engineering. To help students understand the concepts and connect to a real-world scenario, an intuitively designed, hands-on entrepreneurial-minded learning (EML) activity was given to students to complete. Failure of a guyed antenna tower during a tornado was used as the “hook” of the activity. Additionally, a small-scale model representing the full-scale antenna tower was given to the students. The model provided the students with a physical and interactive visualization of the tower in the prompt. The combination of hands-on and real-world components contributed to the entrepreneurial mindset that the activity aimed to promote in students.

A questionnaire was sent to students who had completed the activity, aiming to gather insights into their perceptions of the effectiveness of the activity as a learning aid. The current paper provides a comprehensive description of the activity, discusses the survey questions, investigates the results, and evaluates its impact on student understanding of the equilibrium of rigid bodies in 3D.