MARC

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035 |a 2318122495 
045 0 |b d20100620 
100 1 |a Yip-Hoi, Derek 
245 1 |a Strategies For Teaching Cad Automation To Engineers And Technologists 
260 |b American Society for Engineering Education-ASEE  |c Jun 20, 2010 
513 |a Conference Proceedings 
520 3 |a Training in Computer-Aided Design is now common place in engineering and technology programs. This can take one of three forms. Instruction in the mechanics and strategies for effectively using a CAD application is the most common. This is often completed early in the program to provide students with the ability to use these tools in term projects and capstone design. The second approach delves into a study of the building blocks of a CAD system getting into the areas of geometric and solid modeling, constraint solving, data structures, computer graphics and the use of CAD data in downstream processes such as tool path generation and rapid prototyping. Courses in this area are typically offered as senior electives or in graduate programs. The third form involves teaching how to automate CAD system functions using simple programs commonly referred to as macros or scripts. In the past CAD system vendors have provided their own scripting languages. Examples include AUTOLisp (AutoCAD) and GRIP (Unigraphics). Today with the use of Windows building blocks in CAD interface development, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is now commonly available for scripting (e.g. Inventor, SolidWorks, CATIA, SolidEdge to name a few). Study of this area which is referred to as CAD Automation in this paper is also at the senior level or in a graduate course. This paper describes in detail a new senior level course being offered to Engineering Technologists that teaches CAD Automation using CATIA with VBA. Students are introduced to the various areas in which CAD automation can be applied. These are in automating the activities of Part Configuration, Product Configuration, Integration, Data Retrieval and Analysis and Optimization. Strategies and techniques for teaching the automation tools are presented. This is challenging in part because of the variation in programming backgrounds of the students. The use of Excel a program that students are familiar with, to teach VBA is described. It will be shown how this is also critical to the study of the Integration aspect of automation where data is passed back and forth between a spreadsheet and the CAD system in creating and manipulating geometry and product structures. Teaching the CATIA automation object structure is accomplished through study of macros recorded during manual modeling activities with the GUI. The benefits and challenges in using this approach are discussed. Overviews of assignments and project work are given. Assignments include the creation of a beam bending program in Excel that controls beam section and length parameters in CATIA and that extracts section properties in calculating beam deflection and stresses. An example of project work that involves automating the creation of airfoil sections for products such as aircraft wings, propellers, helicopter rotor blades, wind turbines and hydrofoils is described. This paper concludes with a discussion of the challenges observed in teaching this course and ways to improve content and delivery in the future. The Engineering Technology Department at Western Washington University (WWU) runs several programs that train Technologists in the area of product development. These include 
653 |a Teaching 
653 |a Students 
653 |a Rapid prototyping 
653 |a Hydrofoils 
653 |a Technologists 
653 |a Engineering education 
653 |a Solid modelling 
653 |a Graphical user interface 
653 |a Constraint modelling 
653 |a Visual Basic for Applications 
653 |a Data retrieval 
653 |a Configurations 
653 |a Rotor blades (turbomachinery) 
653 |a Propellers 
653 |a Product development 
653 |a Automation 
653 |a Data structures 
653 |a Rotary wings 
653 |a Optimization 
653 |a Wind turbines 
653 |a Spreadsheets 
653 |a Visual programming languages 
653 |a Wings (aircraft) 
653 |a Computer graphics 
653 |a Rotor blades 
653 |a Educational technology 
653 |a Computer assisted instruction--CAI 
653 |a Property 
653 |a Models 
653 |a Geometry 
653 |a Technology 
653 |a Engineering 
653 |a Professional training 
653 |a Strategies 
653 |a Graduate studies 
653 |a Scripts 
653 |a Data 
653 |a Vendors 
653 |a Languages 
653 |a Computer aided design--CAD 
653 |a Retrieval 
653 |a Aircraft 
653 |a Electives 
653 |a Ability 
773 0 |t Association for Engineering Education - Engineering Library Division Papers  |g (Jun 20, 2010), p. 15.1099.1 
786 0 |d ProQuest  |t Library Science Database 
856 4 1 |3 Citation/Abstract  |u https://www.proquest.com/docview/2318122495/abstract/embedded/L8HZQI7Z43R0LA5T?source=fedsrch 
856 4 0 |3 Full text outside of ProQuest  |u https://peer.asee.org/strategies-for-teaching-cad-automation-to-engineers-and-technologists