Revitalizing Tech Ed with Pro/DESKTOP

Name: Keith Davis
School: Drury High School, North Adams, Massachusetts
Impact: Teacher revitalizes course with new software and design challenge

Keith Davis's CAD/CAM Manufacturing class at Drury High School in North Adams, Massachusetts, trains students to use tools that are essential to product innovation. So it's only natural that Davis, a 48-year-old technology teacher, is always looking for innovative ways to do his own thing: teach his classes.

For three years, Davis taught CAD/CAM Manufacturing by assigning his students to design a rocking horse with SolidWorks software and to make it in wood shop. There were several problems in this approach, however. The expense of SolidWorks meant the school could afford to load the design software on only enough computers for less than half the students. Davis couldn't assign homework because SolidWorks didn't allow the students to take the software home. And for many students, SolidWorks was tricky and difficult to use.

A New Solution

For these reasons, in the 2001-2002 school year Davis dropped SolidWorks and switched to Pro/DESKTOP. PTC gives Pro/DESKTOP to middle and high schools for free and allows students to install it on their home computers. The functionality of the software packages is comparable, he says, but "Pro/DESKTOP is more user-friendly than SolidWorks."

Davis also dropped the rocking horse and developed a new design and manufacturing challenge - creating a miniature trebuchet, a catapult used to lay siege in medieval times. Although other schools have done similar projects, Davis says, "I have yet to see this project done as part of the entire process." The course is designed around the Massachusetts science, technology and engineering curriculum frameworks to ensure that students would understand the engineering design method when tested for it on the state's standardized exam, the MCAS.

A 10-Week Learning Experience

Davis led his students through the catapult project in about 10 weeks of almost-daily 52-minute classes (six periods every seven days). In its first year, the elective CAD/CAM Manufacturing class attracted 14 boys and four girls.

Initially Davis spent six periods working with his students to define the design challenge, to research trebuchets, and to understand time, materials and other constraints. Next they spent two periods brainstorming their solutions - different ways to assemble a kit of standard parts including tongue depressors, dowels, carpet tacks, push pins, wood block, plastic spoon, rubber bands, straw and wire nuts.

With their miniature spoon-and-tongue-depressor trebuchets sitting on their desks, the students began a four-week unit reverse-engineering them in Pro/DESKTOP. "It's kind of a backward process," Davis concedes, but "making the catapult first gets them motivated to learn the material. Then when they learn to draw in three dimensions, they can concentrate on the features of the program, without information overload."

Step by Step

Not until the students had produced 3D drawings did Davis set them loose in the Drury High School hallway to test their trebuchets. High above the crowd of students, ping pong balls shot into the air, ricocheting off the ceiling and demonstrating a constraint none of the students had anticipated: the height of the space in which the catapult would be used. Davis listened for the students to voice their realization that their brainstorming about constraints had not gone far enough.

"Students typically commit to a particular design before they study it and try to figure out how well it will work," Davis says. "Many students decide their first design is the best even though I require them to show several design solutions. It's usually the first design they feel vested in and it can lead to closed minds.

"The best thing about the ball hitting the ceiling is I don't have to say anything. The students see their error and correct the problem without any criticism from me. It makes it a very non-threatening environment. From this exercise they learn to keep their minds open."

Next, the students spent about a week manufacturing trebuchet kits that would be used by the next class. Again, Davis was again silent as he waited for the inevitable: when drilled, the tongue depressors split so easily the reject rate hit 90 percent. Davis encouraged the students to employ the design process they had learned earlier to solve this problem.

The Proof is in the Enrollment

"A few years ago I saw the project in a workshop sponsored by a physics teacher who called himself Mr. Fysixs," Davis says. "With his permission, I created a similar kit and expanded the project into an entire unit. I feel the redesign of his CAD / CAM Manufacturing course was a big success. Students were highly motivated by the enjoyable design challenge and they learned 3D design quickly with Pro/DESKTOP."

Students cast their "votes" in favor of the revamped course when they registered for the next semester: all but two of the 16 enrolled in Davis's follow-on course, Advanced Manufacturing, compared to just three the year before. "I really liked designing on Pro/DESKTOP and it has taught me a lot," said one of the students, Kayla Parras.

Davis' gratification goes beyond the validation of his own teaching skills; he believes the positive experience with technology education will affect the career choice of some of the students. This is important in rural Berkshire County, where local industry faces a labor shortage in engineering and technology jobs.

The switch to Pro/DESKTOP has strengthened his program, according to Davis. "PTC wants to work with teachers as an education partner while SolidWorks wants teachers to be education customers," he says. "There's a big difference between a partner and a customer."