A Course for the Development of 3-D Spatial Visualization Skills in Freshman Engineering Students

空间可视化被认为是一种有价值的， 所有学科的工程师的基本技能。的 本项目的目的是设计一个三学分的课程， 三维空间可视化，并开发 这门课程可以用来教授的必要材料。 这些 材料将包括书面教科书和实验室 手册. 实验练习将包括素描和 计算机图形，并将利用可视化 IDEAS软件的功能。 工科新生三维可视化能力差 技能是本课程的目标受众。 妇女 被发现比男性少三倍 拥有良好的空间视觉化技能。因此 预计拟议的课程将增加 让妇女学习工程学。这个目标 课程是提供空间可视化的先决条件 学生在随后的学习中取得成功所需的技能 工程设计图学课程和以后的学习 和工作

Spatial visualization is known to be a valuable and often essential skill for engineers in all of the disciplines. The purpose of this project is to design a three credit course in three-dimensional spatial visualization and to develop the necessary materials from which the course can be taught. These materials will include a written textbook and a laboratory manual. The laboratory exercises will involve sketching and computer graphics and will also utilize the visualization capabilities of IDEAS software. Freshmen engineering students with weak 3-D visualization skills are the target audience for this course. Women have been found to be approximately three times less likely than men to have well-developed spatial visualization skills. Thus, it is expected that the proposed course will increase the accessibility of engineering studies to women. The goal of this course is to provide the prerequisite spatial visualization skills needed by students to succeed in their subsequent engineering design graphics courses and in their later study and work.