Drafting / Design / CAD
3-D Visualization Practice with Cube Puzzles
Solving Piet Hein’s cube puzzles gives students great experience with the 3-D visualization skills essential to success with drafting, CAD and engineering graphics.
Astigmatism Diagnosis Graphic
In this project, students use either mechanical drawing equipment or a CAD system to create a graphic design that can be used to test for visual astigmatism.
Cardboard Boat Challenge
Students research, design, construct, and race cardboard boats, gaining substantial math, science, communication, and engineering experience. Includes key definitions, detailed student instructions, 13 pages of student work sheets, plus an evaluation sheet.
Collapsible Structures
Students learn the principles of how collapsible structures are designed and built. The project culminates with students building a model module of the International Space Station that will fit inside the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle.
Creating a Foot Mouse
With modeling clay and string, students use universal design strategy to model a new product.
Descriptive Geometry Project
Descriptive Geometry shows that engineering answers may be found two ways: by using math and by drafting an answer.
Designing Machine Elements in CAD
Introduce postsecondary CAD students to elements of three-dimensional
industrial design.
Designing Memorials and Monuments
Monuments and memorials inform, sooth and inspire us. As this scale-model hands-on project shows, they also can provide students with excellent experience with design.
Designing Playgrounds
Background on the many safety concerns involved in design and construction, plus a hands-on activity in which students design and construct a small-scale playground.
Drafting Challenges
From the best of the“Brain Teaser” archives, 20 problems that require students to draw the missing views in orthographic projections.
Geodesic Dome
Students build a model geodesic dome with wooden dowels and PVC pipe.
It’s High Time to Make Sundials
With this activity, students design a sundial in CAD, export the file to a CNC router to mill the dial’s face and then learn and apply the mathematics needed to have it accurately track time.
Landscape Architecture: Design and Problem Solving
Series of projects introduce students to a variety of issues in landscape architecture. Projects include designing backyard retreats, planning a neighborhood community, and solving community design problems.
Landscape Architecture Digital Portfolio Project
Students get great experience with design practices, CAD, communication software applications, Internet research, digital photography and interdisciplinary content—and make the school environment more attractive. Teachers get a great project idea and a complete grading rubric to help assess student performance.
Larry Bob’s Block
Students learn how to make isometric and orthographic drawings and flat pattern layouts, then build a puzzle block using their new skills.
Manufacturing: PHD Blocks
The "pretty hard drawing" (PHD) block activities give students practice with computer-aided drafting (CAD), which is used in the manufacturing process to create working drawings of products and their subcomponents.
Planned Community
You don’t have to look very far to find a planned community nowadays, they’re all around us. In this activity, students individually construct one piece of property, following strict covenants, that together will make up one large planned community.
Platonic Solids
Students learn to identify the five platonic solids (tetrahedron, hexahedron, octahedron, dodecahedron, icosahedron) and construct paper models. They then play a baseball board game that uses the dodecahedron-like dice.
Project Gizmo
Students learn the design process used in industry and use CAD to create appropriate packaging for products of varying shapes.
Rubrics for Drafting and Engineering Classes
Wouldn’t it be great if students knew beforehand the specific criteria on which their work will be graded? Here are rubrics for drafting and engineering that students can use to better evaluate their own performance, along with tips on how to use them.
Soma Cube
Work with legendary scientist Piet Hien’s Soma cube gives students experience with visualization, technical drawing, mathematics, manufacturing, research and more. Project includes background information, plus 10 hands-on, minds-on activities.
Subject Codes:
- A — Applied Academics
- B — Building Trades / Construction
- C— Communication
- D — Drafting / Design / CAD
- E — Electricity / Electronics / Computer Technology
- G — Grading / Assessment
- M — Manufacturing
- PE — Power / Energy
- P — Problem Solving / Pre-Engineering
- S — Great for Substitutes
- T — Transportation
- W — Woodworking
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