New Ways of Seeing

Computer-aided drafting and design software makes inroads in secondary education

By B.J. Novitski

B.J. Novitski writes about computer-aided design for architecture publications and is a frequent contributor to Electronic School. She lives in Eugene, Ore.

Vocational students in rural West Virginia are learning the computer-aided drafting skills that will help them secure jobs with local land surveyors. Art students in Manhattan are gaining 3-D modeling skills that will give them a head start as they move into architecture and engineering schools.

In both cases, these students are among the first generation of high schoolers with access to sophisticated software and hardware that in the past were the sole domain of large, well-endowed universities and high-tech professional design firms. But now that computer-aided design and drafting technology is relatively accessible and commonly found in colleges and firms of all shapes and sizes, it is not surprising that the technology also is making its way into high schools. And as it does, it's radically changing the dynamics of learning in the classroom.

A quiet revolution

The meaning of "computer-aided design," or CAD, has evolved over the last 20 years as the capabilities of the technology have changed. In the early years, software developers wrote programs that imitated the actions of architects and engineers. Just as an engineer drew a line across a sheet of paper with a pencil, early drafting software "drew" electronic lines across computer screens.

Inside the machines, those lines were defined in terms of their geometry--as extending between point A and point B. Drawings could be modified by varying these point locations, and eventually new user interfaces and input devices gave designers a feeling similar to drawing across a surface.

As time went on, however, it became clear that the act of drawing on screen was no faster than drawing by hand. Designers weren't achieving the promised gains in productivity that justified the high cost of the technology.

Fortunately, software developers soon harnessed the increasing power of computers to provide new capabilities to design in three dimensions. (Designing in three dimensions is the equivalent of modeling in clay while designing in two dimensions is like drawing on paper.) Three-dimensional modeling enables designers to craft objects, manipulate them, add light and shadow, and view them from any perspective. Using three-dimensional projections, they can visualize exactly how the two-dimensional abstractions on paper would look when manufactured into a finished object or building. At last, designers had their productivity breakthrough, because manually constructing perspective views is a time-consuming and error-prone procedure.

Now these modeling procedures have become so powerful that the act of drawing flat, two-dimensional views is close to becoming obsolete. The newest software lets architects and engineers conceive and develop their designs as three-dimensional objects; the computer then can generate two-dimensional drawings, if needed, as a by-product of the model.

The programs also let designers attribute a variety of characteristics to the object under design, making it an "information model" that conveys data about material strengths, color, thermal characteristics, and so on. No longer just something to evaluate aesthetically, the model can be subjected to engineering analyses, cost estimation, and other tests that are routinely required in professional practice. That versatility makes the model far more valuable than a simple drawing and promises to revolutionize design practice.

Ironically, as design professionals struggle to master the formidable complexity of this powerful new software, some teenagers are learning it with much less difficulty. The youngsters' advantage comes partly from having adaptable young minds and childhood exposure to electronics. But mature professionals often must also unlearn the conventions and abstractions that were a standard part of design training and that still persist in many architecture schools. As one CAD teacher notes: If you learned in 2-D, 3-D is going to seem hard. But thinking in 3-D is really more natural, and young students who never learned the old processes have a much easier time with the new software.

Four schools around the United States illustrate a range of ways CAD software is being applied at the secondary level. The courses in each case are quite different, varying with the background of the teachers and the intended purposes of the instruction. The range spans vocational and college-preparatory programs, engineering, and the arts.

New vocations

In the coal-mining community of Logan, W.Va., students at the Ralph Willis Technology Center have been learning drafting skills on computers since the early 1980s. But according to their teacher, Vikki Johnson, the newest software has made a considerable difference in the students' ability and eagerness to learn. They work with Autodesk's Autocad Release 12, the CAD software most commonly used nationwide in architecture and engineering firms.

Johnson finds that the students are highly motivated by the colors and capabilities of this software. When they first begin learning it, she lets them draw anything that interests them. That "fun," she says, encourages them to explore, and their enthusiasm carries over to the more academic assignments of drawing machine parts and house plans.

Recalling a student who used CAD to design a bridge for a model train, Johnson says he then tried to build a physical model from his plans, found some mistakes, and became absorbed in the challenge of solving the problems. "It makes you feel good when a student says, 'I don't know what I did wrong, but I'll find the solution,'" Johnson says.

Drafting is not the only skill students learn by using the drawing software. Her students' verbal communication skills have also improved, Johnson contends. For example, she will pair a student who has embraced the technology with one who is still resistant. When they start working together on a project, she's noticed, the enthusiasm of the first student is infectious.

Students also sharpen their ability to create lists of materials for a design--an important task for a designer. Autocad has a feature that automatically calculates a materials list, but before students use it for their design, Johnson asks them to calculate by hand their own materials list. Then they compare it with the CAD-generated list. "This way, they get a better understanding of what they're trying to do, why they're doing it, and why it has to be right."

And the benefits pay off in the real world, Johnson explains: "Lumber and hardware stores are employing our students because of their ability to read blueprints and do materials lists."

Another program at Ralph Willis goes a step further toward modern computer manufacturing methods. Under teacher John Bartram, students learn how to use industrial-quality computer-driven machine tools and to program the computers that are built into those machines. For example, using a programming language called G-Code, the students can instruct the machine where to drill holes in a sheet of metal and how big to make them. The programming and setup for the process takes longer than simply drilling the holes manually in a single sheet, but the computer then can produce an unlimited number of identical parts with little additional human effort. This training prepares students to operate sophisticated equipment at engineering shops and high-tech factories where computer-operated machining is now the rule. Bartram's students now find employment in production shops all over the state.

The success of the programs at Ralph Willis, it should be emphasized, is more than the result of technology. Input from an advisory committee of local industry and business representatives guides the center's curriculum and helps ensure that graduates' skills match the needs of local and regional companies. The committee also helps the school acquire state-of-the-art equipment.

Computer control

Similar work is being conducted at the Utah Basin Applied Technology Center in Roosevelt, Utah. Teacher Mark Dame offers two courses, flexible manufacturing and CAD drafting, using Bentley Systems' MicroStation, the No. 2 best-seller among professional CAD systems. Flexible manufacturing is the process of cutting parts with "computer numerically controlled" (CNC) machines.

Unlike the West Virginia students, who write computer code to run the machines, the Utah students draw their designs in CAD, and the computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software converts the lines and curves in the drawing to CNC code. The code directs the tool path that the CNC machine follows automatically to cut the part. The process makes even more direct the communication between the designer's intention and the completed object. Dame's students know that the techniques they're learning already are in use in the aerospace industry. Thousands of such processes combine to build the new computer-manufactured Boeing 777 aircraft, for example, the first commercial aircraft to be entirely designed and preassembled on a computer. On a smaller scale, similar processes are making inroads into the construction industry--for example, for the carving of exotically shaped stone veneers.

Dame's CAD drafting course evolved from a traditional drafting course. He still teaches a few paper-and-pencil techniques, but the students now work primarily on computers. MicroStation offers four views of the object under design, so, for example, a user can see a top view, two side views, and an isometric simultaneously. As a student draws, the changes appear in all four views at once--which makes it easier for students to visualize their design and understand its three-dimensionality, Dame says.

Freed from certain drawing tasks, student designers can concentrate on the more important technical aspects of mechanical design. Dame concludes, "Instead of worrying about their line weights and lettering being perfect, they can spend more time on applying concepts like perpendicularity, concentricity, and parallelism. This translates into better developed designs. My biggest problem now is getting the students out of my classroom at the end of the day!"

College-bound CAD

Just as some CAD-based vocational programs are readying students for modern workplaces, other programs are preparing college-bound students for professional schools. Most architecture and engineering schools now have computers in at least parts of their curricula, and faculty ask about the computer backgrounds of high school applicants for admission.

In some cases, the benefits of CAD depend on the context. For example, to architecture professors who value imagination over neat drawing, computer-aided drafting might be no more impressive than traditional drafting was. Yet students who master 3-D modeling are likely to have some advantages in design schools. Modeling gives students an early introduction to three-dimensional thinking, which is vital for success as an architect, says architect Lamar Henderson, a professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

"If you can do modeling instead of drawing in the critically important schematic design phase," Henderson says, "it will help you understand spatial relationships, how the building may be built, and how to communicate the architect's intent to the client. Computers are teaching us that there are important cognitive differences between those who think spatially and those who think two-dimensionally. I wish we had more research to help us to evaluate candidates for admission who think in terms of modeling more than drawing."

Even without such research, some high school teachers have adopted 3-D modeling as the medium for teaching the fundamentals of engineering and architecture. Edward Kobus, of Lake Braddock Secondary School in Fairfax County, Va., teaches five courses in technical drawing and engineering using AutoCad and its sister modeler, 3-D Studio, also by Autodesk. Lake Braddock received the software by virtue of Autodesk's educational grant program.

In the most advanced class, students design functioning mechanical devices, then build and test them. For example, last spring, Kobus asked the students to design a boost-glide rocket, which goes up like a rocket and returns like a glider. As in past years, they did the design portion of the exercise on CAD systems; now some of them have begun doing simulated building and testing within CAD as well.

They construct a 3-D computer model and create an animated simulation of the engines firing, stages separating, parachutes opening, and so on. Kobus thinks it's important for his students to be exposed to solid modeling, in which digital objects have mass, density, specific gravity, and other properties in addition to shape.

"This reflects the way industry is going," says Kobus. "When somebody designs something complicated, like an airplane, there are thousands of parts that have to be conceived as 3-D models in someone's head first. In the old days, they would have had to translate those back into 2-D to transfer them onto paper. Then the plans would go to whoever was going to build the plane, and that person would have to translate the 2-D plans back into a 3-D object. But now, people are thinking in 3-D, and that 3-D CAD model goes directly to the machines that manufacture the part."

Kobus notes that his students have very little trouble mastering the 3-D software, despite its reputation for being hard to learn. He speculates that it's only difficult for those who have had to think in two dimensions for a long time. "Thinking in 3-D is more natural, and students who don't need to get rid of all that mental baggage associated with 2-D are more adaptable."

Kobus doesn't have statistics to prove the experience is helping his students get into design schools, but he knows it's helping them get part-time jobs with local firms. He laughs: "They end up teaching the architects and engineers the latest drawing techniques."

His current teaching methods have other advantages, too. In contrast to the conventional wisdom that computers help people work faster, Kobus notes that his students spend the same amount of time on their projects as before; but the technology enables them to explore more options, so the designs end up being developed further.

Because the software changes so fast, Kobus is unable to master every detail of a program before he gives it to his students. But he's come to expect his students to figure out any software function they need to know--and he learns from them.

Everyone gains from this shared learning experience. Kobus recalls a student whose manual-drawing and model-building techniques were so sloppy that the underlying design ideas were masked, and his grades, though not failing, were low. But when the student learned to do his drawings and models on the computer, his lack of manual coordination was no longer a drawback to self-expression. His good ideas prevailed, and he now studies engineering in college.

Sculpture

Another school with a high proportion of college-bound students is the art-centered Dalton School in New York City. Sculptor Robert Meredith, who teaches Dalton's architecture curriculum, has noticed that students are more accepting of ideas about form and space in the context of architecture than when they confront them in a sculpture class. "I find it very liberating to teach architecture," he says, "but really what I'm teaching is design and sculpture."

Meredith's beginning course centers on two exercises. The first asks students to design a simple form that can be duplicated and recombined into a modular system. The success of the module's design depends on how well it fits and combines in three dimensions with other identical modules. In the second exercise, the students design a house.

Advanced students work on individual and group projects. As the projects grow in scale, they also grow in the complexity of technical, historical, and philosophical ideas to be considered, just like exercises in architecture schools.

Until a few years ago, students approached all three exercises by first developing their designs on paper, then building models out of chipboard. Now, after initial paper sketches, the students "build" their models with Macintosh design software called form*Z from auto*des*sys, Inc. As a result of these new methods, the students' designs reflect a better understanding of three-dimensional space. "When drafting [using traditional techniques], students use an abstract vocabulary of plans and elevations, and they don't really understand the spaces," Meredith says. By working regularly with "the illusion of three-dimensional space," Meredith says, his students learn to look at a design "from any perspective and easily manipulate the forms." As a result, they gain mastery over "how to deal with the shape and form of space."

The software also engages his students intensely. In the past, students became bored with working on a single drawing for a long period, Meredith says, yet they were afraid to alter it because of all the time they had invested. Now that the software lets them do multiple drawings quickly, they readily experiment with textures, colors, and details.

Unexpectedly, Meredith has discovered that his students are learning to work better with one another. "At first I was worried that the software would isolate the students, but it's actually done the opposite," Meredith says. "After learning the basics, each student approaches the software differently and specializes in particular functions, such as rotations, sweeps, or terrain meshes." When other students need help, they call on whomever is expert in that function.

Students feel a great sense of accomplishment when they can help one another, Meredith says, adding, "I'm not the sole teacher with all the information--that's changed the dynamic of the classroom and made it a stronger place." Another change he's noticed is that students have begun to create animations from their 3-D models, adding sound, text, and other images to create multimedia productions.

Meredith has no doubt that the spatial learning his students acquire helps them later in architecture and engineering schools. Their computer experience has propelled them far beyond what they might have achieved in traditional media. If there is any downside, Meredith muses, it's that the first few years of professional schools are not necessarily as automated as Dalton. "When these students get to college," he says, "they're further ahead than the [college] expects them to be, and they have to maintain a holding position until they move up to the year in school where they're using computers."

Postsecondary educators have been struggling for a decade to get their students up to speed on computers. Perhaps that will change, as a new crop of secondary students moves up, ready and willing to teach the teachers.