Using Video Training Lectures in a Mechanical Engineering Computer-Aided Design Course

The primary objective of the Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) course that is a required course during the third year in the mechanical engineering curriculum at Binghamton University is to educate students in engineering design. The benefits and limitations of computer-aided engineering design are stressed. Pro/Engineer^® is used as the basis of this course. It integrates solid modeling, motion analysis, and finite element analysis. As a means to the objective of teaching engineering design, students must first be trained to use the software. The effectiveness of the software training and design education was assessed using a project that is repeated (although modified) each time the course is offered. This is often referred to as a “marker assignment.” The marker assignment in this case is an aircraft landing gear design and analysis. In this paper, the effectiveness of training videos for design education is examined using the marker assignment approach. Data for three semesters is used. In each semester a different method of presentation was used: (1) traditional in class lectures only, (2) only recorded videos distributed to students, and (3) recorded videos distributed to students combined with summary in-class lectures. The changes to the course that were adopted based on the assessment are presented. In addition, the results of a survey of student satisfaction with the video format used in the course are presented.