2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Over the last several decades, engineering programs have started adding introductory engineering courses that do not necessarily rely on a long list of prerequisites, such as physics and calculus. This was done for many reasons, such as making engineering more attractive, improving student motivation, and increasing retention. These courses are sometimes called cornerstone courses to contrast them with capstone courses that are taught in the final year.

In our electrical and computer engineering programs, we added a full year of introductory courses, covering areas such as exploration of the field of electrical and computer engineering, circuit analysis, problem solving, programming, and combining software and hardware to accomplish a larger goal, usually as a part of a team project.

The first course in this three-quarter-long sequence is meant to accomplish the goals mentioned above. However, the fact that there are no prerequisites presents significant challenges due to a wide variety of student backgrounds. Therefore, it is important to provide very substantial scaffolding for students with limited experience in technical areas while trying to provide enough challenges for the students with more relevant background. This problem is particularly important in programming which is known to be challenging and potentially frustrating for students.

To address some of these problems, we have introduced Tinkercad as a tool to simulate both the Arduino programming environment and electric circuits, where it provides a realistic visual representation of the experimental environment. This approach is implemented in two programs: one in the US and another in China. At both institutions the instruction is done face-to-face and labs are used extensively. We are in the process of collecting data and evaluating:
a) Student technical preparedness, both hardware and software (Are they ready?)
b) Student attitudes toward using Tinkercad (Was it helpful?)
c) Instructor observations and experiences (Is implementation hard? Do students benefit?)
d) Any differences between the two institutions in terms of student preparedness and attitudes
In our previous report, we found that students liked the software but the sample was small. In this paper, we will present a more comprehensive set of data which should enable us to make firmer conclusions. Overall, we hope to present the case that Tinkercad can be a very useful tool in transitioning students from a variety of backgrounds into more technical coursework, and to provide increased motivation to persist in their studies. We will also provide details of the assignments where Tinkercad is used.