Classroom Photographs

The photographs that have been posted below are present in order to give you an idea of the types of activities my students are working on during each class period. Pictures may be posted from throughout the school year so some images may include students who are no longer present in my class. To see larger versions of each image, click on the thumbnails below. Images with and are movie files.
 

Mechanical Drawing - Hand Tools

We start the year off by learning how to draw accurately by hand. This is an important skill for students to learn because in industry you sometimes need to modify designs on the fly without the aid of a computer.

Students also reinforce their skills in basic geometry and other mathematics as accurately recreate shapes. Students learn how to draw Isometric shapes and then split them into multi-view drawings.

Mechanical Drawing Basics

The activities that the students complete at the beginning of the year lay the foundation for the concepts and terminology that they will be using the entire year with either AutoCAD or drawings by hand.

These drawings re-introduce many concepts covered in math class such as perpendicular lines, parallel lines, supplementary angles, complementary angles, basic algebra, and others. Students learn the importance of accuracy while they use hand tools to create the complex shapes that are so easily created using computer software.

By the time students are done with the hand drawings, they understand the basic concepts needed to successfully utilize AutoCAD.

Introduction to AutoCAD 2012

During the remainder of the school year, the Technical Drawing Minor students will be using a piece of software called AutoCAD 2012. This software provides students with real world training skills because of the wide spread use of AutoCAD in industry today. Using this software to create drawings provides students with a glimpse of what it would be like to go into the engineering, manufacturing, architectural, and design field. The day to day projects that students will be completing challenge the students math, design and problem solving skills in order to accurately complete each challenge.

AutoCAD Basics

During the first 2-4 class periods, the students learn the very basic elements of AutoCAD. These elements include the user interface of AutoCAD, simple commands, mouse interface, and basic terminology. These elements are reinforced through a series of drawings that students have to complete.

AutoCAD 2d Drawings

As the students become more comfortable with the basic elements of AutoCAD, they  are introduced to new commands like "copy", "extend", "offset", "fillet", and many others. The difficulty of the drawings will also increase as the commands become more advanced.

AutoCAD Isometric Drawings

While the student were working with the hand tools, they were introduced to a type of 3d drawing called "Isometric Drawings". These drawings are being revisited while using AutoCAD to show how the skills that were learned earlier can be transferred into more complex drawings.

One of the most important lessons students learn while working with isometric drawings is the idea of perspective. One of the hardest skills for students to develop is the ability to perceive objects, without actually holding them, in 3 dimensions (height, width, length). These drawings that the students re-create help them to visualize how these objects should look in a real world environment and recognize when they are not proportionally accurate.

This project challenges the students knowledge of AutoCAD, visual perspective, measuring skills, and many others as they attempt to take an object existing in real life and draw it to scale in AutoCAD. The students will need to go online and research these objects to get a basic idea of the size and scale of these objects. Once the students have found enough information they will be using what they have found to accurately draw their objects. Part of their drawing will be based on actual measurements, others will be based on comparison and proportions taken from images.

This video shows a summary of what the students in Mr. Hollstein's Technical Drawing Course are currently working on. All images and videos include students from the current school year.

Click on the Image to the left to watch the video.

Sample Guitar Design Completed by Mr. Hollstein

F15 featuring CAD Drawing and Colored Rendering

Car Drawing featuring CAD Drawing and Colored Rendering

Running Shoe featuring CAD Drawing and Colored Rendering

Custom Chopper with Rendering Completed by Mr. Hollstein

These are some other sample drawings completed by students in the Technical Drawing Minor Course.