2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This evidence-based practice paper details the implementation of a curiosity-focused tolerancing activity in a large first-year engineering graphics course. Many first-year engineering courses focus on CAD and engineering graphics, which are important skills for engineering students to learn early in their education and apply in future design courses and projects. As real-world engineering problems grow increasingly complex, preparing future engineers requires equipping them with both technical expertise and the curiosity needed to develop creative solutions. When classes can incorporate curiosity and creativity-targeted activities, students feel a stronger sense of motivation and are subsequently more equipped to solve problems.

This paper investigates a curricular intervention delivered in a first-year course that primarily focuses on CAD and engineering graphics, with an enrollment of over 400 students annually. This course includes both a large lecture and discussion sections. The smaller discussion sections consist of ~40 students and allow for more discussion and interactions between course staff and students.

One of the topics of this course is dimensioning and tolerancing according to engineering drawing standards, where students learn about nominal sizes, tolerances, and how to read engineering drawings to interpret part size and interactions. It has been noted that many students in this course struggle to connect theoretical concepts of dimensioned tolerances and fits with how parts actually interact in physical assemblies. To address this challenge, and to spark curiosity about tolerancing and fits, a new lab module was developed in which students calculate and predict the fits of pegs of various sizes inserted into machined holes of different dimensions on a physical board.

In the lab module, students work in pairs to predict which combinations of holes and pegs will fit and how tight the tolerance will be. They practice reading engineering drawings, determining upper and lower dimensional limits from manufacturer specifications, and comparing their theoretical calculations with real pegs and holes to develop an intuitive understanding of how different fits feel in practice. They are then encouraged to reflect on what they’ve learned and how it might apply to the rest of the course content and the semester-long design project. This module was implemented in the first-year engineering graphics course, and student perceptions were collected using surveys administered following the activity. This paper discusses the findings from the pilot implementation of this module, and future work involves developing more curiosity-focused activities in the course. This lab module can be replicated in similar introductory courses of varying sizes and scope as a means to enhance student curiosity and provide a hands-on learning opportunity. By encouraging curiosity in engineering courses, we aim to not only improve students’ technical understanding of engineering concepts but also develop their ability to approach open-ended design problems with curiosity and creativity.