IDEA-Pen: Interactive Design and Analysis through a Pen-Based Interface

IDEA-Pen项目正在使用平板电脑技术来帮助学生在课堂环境中解决工程分析问题。使用电子笔，学生将能够素描结构分析问题。使用研究者之前编写的图像分析软件将草图传递给有限元分析（FEA）程序。然后，FEA程序将提供对学生所做草图的分析。学生的学习预计会增加，因为他们将能够探索设计的几个选项（增加设计空间），因为分析可以快速完成。通过增加设计空间，学生将能够观察到设计更改对其设计性能的影响。这将增加对系统性能的直觉，并将导致更好的设计技巧。通过分析学生的考试成绩来监测这一结果。预计该技术将有助于将课堂从以教师为中心转变为以学生为中心的环境。通过分析未由教师分配的尝试问题的数量和种类来监控这种期望。教室预计将变得更具互动性，当然也更吸引学生。这种期望通过直接测量学生尝试的问题数量来监测。由于软件将以开放源码格式提供，并可通过流行的应用程序下载中心分发，预计项目成果将得到广泛传播。

The IDEA-Pen project is using tablet technology to provide a means of helping students perform engineering analysis problems in a classroom environment. Using an electronic pen, students will be able to sketch structural analysis problems. Image analysis software previously written by the investigators is used to pass the sketch to a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) program. The FEA program will then provide analysis of the sketch made by the students. Student learning is expected to increase because they will be able to explore several options for design (increase the design space) since the analysis can be done quickly. By increasing the design space, students will be able to observe the effects that design changes have on the performance of their design. This will increase intuition about system performance and will result in better design skill. This outcome is being monitored by analyzing student performance on exams. It is also expected that the technology will help shift the classroom from a teacher centered to a student centered environment. This expectation is being monitored by analyzing the number and variety of problems attempted that are not assigned by the instructor. Classrooms are expected to become more interactive and certainly more engaging for the students. This expectation is monitored by directly measuring the numbers of problems attempted by students. Widespread dissemination of the project results are expected to occur because the software will be provided in an open source format and could be distributed through popular application downloads centers.