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Engineering Graphics and Drawing
10

Engineering Graphics and Drawing

Engineering Graphics and Drawing

(OP)
I need "Mechanical Engineering- Graphics and Drawing(or equivalent courses) Syllabii of the following universities. I need especially course objectives. Anyone help me plz.? (I couldn't find it from web sites)

1    Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2     Stanford University
3     University of California, Berkeley
4     University of Cambridge
5     California Institute of Technology

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

2
Those are not courses you'll likely find in an engineering curriculum anymore.  At one time, yes.  Now those are relegated to community college specialization in CAD/CAM.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

(OP)
Thanks Ron,
indeed i had found thisbefore. That's why i'm complicated.
 

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

3
"Engineering Graphics and Drawing," what the heck is that, you mean CAD don't you?  You couldn't give the former away today.  There are a few dozen older (not young in years of engineering experience) people who post here  who have ever heard those four words in that phrase, and also taken that course in college.  Many of the people here could barley draw a rectangular block in three views plus a simple perspective, by hand, let alone anything more complicated without their CAD program.  And, CAD can even draw things that can't be built, and they don't even realize or know it.  Our graphics instructor didn't grade that very highly.  The thought process of conceptualizing, sketching, spacial relationships and mental imagination are so tied up in the computer doing that thinking and expressive process, that if they didn't have CAD, they couldn't function or communicate their engineering thoughts or products.  That whole process is a lost art, you say not even the web knows about it any longer.  I'd buy an old book on the subject, and look at the table of contents.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

As part of my college training I was required to buy a portable board, t-square, protractor, a few sliding triangles, compass, pencils and pencil sharpening file.  A step up was the mechanical pencil.
Like this: http://www.ivgstores.com/IVG2/Y/ProductID-94559-.htm

CAD was a guy with poor manners.  What computer?

Ted

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

Hydtools:
If that's your definition of CAD, you ain't no spring chicken, and may well be one of those few dozen remaining who actually took that class and can still post here.
 

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

Why not just email and or call the universities  ? The public relations or engineering departments might find the information if your total request seems reasonable.  

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

We need to rethink our teaching methods. graphics was subject, I was never exposed to in my college education.It was purely engineering drawing,using a drawing board and T square(no drafter era). However, now in 1st semester of college,Graphics is taught with low emphasis on engineering drawing. rationale being,it is no longer relevant to teach engineering drawing in virtual age.

When these students come out into the real world,with no training to visualise ,they are in a mess. It is imperative,that they are given the training in engineering drawing exhaustively, so that they they use all the advanced soft ware tools effectively in their professional lives. Is this utopian?  

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

I think the next question is: Why do you need the sylabuses (sylabii??)and course objectives from all these universities?  You can't go to all of them at once... and I believe you might be posting from outside the United States.
  

Patricia Lougheed

******

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RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

When I was in school they had a similar course (graduated in 2007).  It was really just an intro to the CAD package that you would be using on all of your projects for the next 4 years.  There was nothing about producing a 2D drawing, let alone how to produce a quality drawing.

Use of system voids warranty.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

seyozen,
Just go to the schools web sites.  All of these schools have complete course listings available online.  Like most people are saying engineering programs typically don't offer courses in 2D drawing.  Sometimes if you look at the engineering tech course listings you can find some GD&T courses that cover some more of the drawing principles.  That was how RIT does it, MEs just learn a particular CAD package while the METech program offered some of the more basic drawing principles.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

I took it at RIT, tail end of the drafting machine age, my only A at the school. If you're starting school, take it at a CC over the summer sometime. Good training for your mind, and your hands if they make you pick up a pencil.

Obscure at university, certainly not required. Surveying is similar, easier to find at community college or technical high school.

When at HVCC I cross registered for a course at RPI. At HVCC surveying meant bunches of Civvies around the quad, buckets of stakes, contemporary laser transits & poles. At RPI: 3 guys w/ antique equipment doing it as an independant study.

I think my dad had to take surveying when he transferred to EE from physics at CU, '61 or so.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

moon,
You from the capitol district area of NY?

And yeah I forgot that option, community schools or trade schools often still teach drawing.  It's funny how sometimes you get more options at the cheaper schools.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

(OP)
@vpl
yes i'm posting from outside the United States.

Thanks guys for your attention.
The course seems so different in the US by comparison Europe.
But i think it still hasn't a common standard. A research shows the case In 2004,(Turkey National Engineering Congress)

The US and EU(universities that accredited by ABET)
only Eng.Dwg.: %33
Eng.Dwg.& CAD: %39
only CAD: %28

I have no idea for 2010 and i'd just like to learn this.

And second question:
You m.engineers, can you read a technical drawing paper exactly?

Also some schools doestn't have such courses...
anyone graduated from?

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

I graduated with a BSME over 30 years ago.  We had to take one course in drawing, projection views, etc.  Nothing about dimensioning, drawing standards, reading drawings.  Even then it was mostly taught by trade schools, not universities.  The engineers just picked it up as you went along once you got into industry.   

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

I'll reiterate....at one time, engineering drawing was a part of the engineering curriculum.  That is no longer the case.  I have experience in the curriculi from long ago (1976 graduate), when engineering drawing/drafting/design was still a part (though small) of the curriculum.  

Fast forward 30 years.....I've been involved in recommending college curricula as a former instructor and a continuing member of advisory councils for university applications....we do not "waste" time in the curricula for such fundamentals....that is left to the "technicians" not the engineers.  Fundamentally, there should still be coursework in this area, as it is necessary for engineers to understand drawings; however, there is little room in a prescribed engineering curriculum for such.   It has simply become an elective that few will elect.

Blame it on the accreditation process!!

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

Sad.

The young CADD literate jocks marvel when I can sit down with a piece of paper and free hand 3 views of something that has to be cut, assembled, welded, etc that a shop can actually build from.

They can do it on CADD, but I can't.

rmw
 

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

rmw, Many patternmakers and machinists in India cannot write in English,but they can read 2D drawings very well and have excellent 3D visualization capabilities. Also they can conceptualize on assembly drawings. I always admire their skills.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

I have the same non-problem with Cuban machinists and tradesmen here in SoFla.  I can't converse with them verbally, but a decent drawing allows them to understand what I want, and sketching and a little arm-waving helps us to resolve the occasional stupid mistake that I make.

 

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

It boggles my mind that Engineers are expected to be the Engineer, the Designer, and the Draftsman yet I had little to no training on the latter 2.  I think that fundamentally Engineering is the application of science to industry.  Design and drafting is the application of art to industry.  When you expect the same person to bring both of these perspectives to the table, you get things like the Pontiac Aztec.  Brilliant piece of engineering that is a disastrous work of art.
 

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

Alternatively, when you bring an engineer to the table with all these perspectives and abilities, you actually have a real engineer, someone who can communicate his design intentions and actually come up with something that can be manufactured or built.  He doesn't just produce thousands of pages of FEA printouts, not knowing if they are right or wrong, not really having any sense that a computed result just doesn't make any sense in the real, built, world.  After all, the computer says so..., don't ask me to explain why.  Then you have a CAD'er who knows nothing about the engineering, and the two don't communicate, and the calculator guy can't read drawings.  If you don't call engineering "design" and you didn't take or can't do drafting and sketching, how do you communicate your calculated thingy to the CAD'er?  I feel sorry for you and your company.  I do a lot of sketching and drawing, sometimes to scale; do the proportions look right, do things fit together or do they clear each other; during my design process on some details, and these go to the CAD guy or draftsperson.  Some significant share of the OP's on these forums show that people who call themselves or think of themselves as engineers can't express a technical thought or question in enough detail for it to be meaningfully discussed.  You have to guess at what they mean or what they want.   Maybe we should change the titles we have been giving these persons to: calculating guy, computing and sciencing specialist, CAD'ers.,operators and manipulators of lines and shapes and general screwer-uppers, because the first guy couldn't communicate his thingy to the second guy, and industrial beatifications specialists.  If they continue to break this process down further we will soon have CAD'ers. who specialize in straight lines and we'll have to call in another for the round holes; we'll have beatificationers who specialize in the darker colors and those who take care of no pour spouts in tea pots, too ugly; and we won't have any real engineers left.  Ron's comments about teaching this to engineering students is sad but true, and you be the judge of what we are getting out of that educational system.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

When I went through my degree program in the late 90's there was one elective course in 2D drafting, and one elective in 3D modelling.  The 3D course didn't teach anything about drawings, and neither taught anything about any sort of drafting standards.  I never even heard of GD&T or ASME drawing standards until after I graduated.

Maybe engineers shouldn't have to know how to prepare a drawing to ASME (or ISO, depending on location) specs, but they should damn well know how to read/interpret one.  Unfortunately, many that I've met do not know either.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

gadkinskj - actually the Aztek was styled by stylists, not engineers. They take degree courses in Industrial Design, and the like, not engineering. Typically they are balding, with a ponytail, and wear all black, and/or polonecks.

Hopefully that was not the cornerstone of your argument.

 

Cheers

Greg Locock


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RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

Actually, the courses that engineering colleges used to offer were mechanical drawing and descriptive geometry which I took back in 1961.  The only computer course offered during that period was FORTRAN which we used in our surveying courses.  There was no CAD.
What I see now with people using this forum is the inability to properly hand sketch which is a shame.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

Out of curiosity's sake I looked at the current course catalog from my old Uni:

MECH-100 Engineering Graphical Communication

This computer aided design and drafting course is an introduction to
engineering graphics and visualization with topics to include sketching, line
drawing, wire-frame section development and elements of solid modeling.
Also, this course will include the development and interpretation of drawings
and specifications for product realization. CAD, office, and web-based
software will be used in student presentations and analysis.

MECH-300 Computer Aided Engineering

This is a threaded continuation of MECH-100, Engineering Graphical
Communication using computer graphics and computer aided design
techniques. These advanced techniques use graphics primitives, construction
functions, transformations, image control, dimensioning and layers. Both
two-dimensional drawings and three-dimensional wireframe, surface
modeling, and simulation modeling such as FEA and kinematic motion are
covered.

Mech-100 is required for most technical disciplines offered, and both are required courses for ME.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

RIT has as a required course in the ME department the following:

Engineering Design Graphics:    This course is an introduction to graphical communication as a tool in documenting the results of an engineering design. Emphasis is placed on the use of Computer Aided Drafting and 3-D Solid Modeling systems to prepare working drawings packages of basic components and assemblies. Students combine the practice of sketching along with computer-based solid modeling to produce a parametric design. At the conclusion of the course, students will be able to prepare working drawings, with appropriate views, title blocks, and bill of materials. Lab 4, Credit 2

I didn't end up needing to take this as I learned both solid modeling and 2d drafting through courses I took while still in high school, so I can't speak to its contents.  By description it seems to emphasize the use of software to communicate, not just as raw 3D design.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

I was just thinking, what is the intent of your search seyozen?  Why do you want this specific course?  Are you planning to decide on which institute to attend based on this one course?

Also,
gadkinsj, what is so amazing about the engineering in a Pontiac Aztec?  Along the lines of what Greg said, I am pretty sure the Aztec was just some marketing guys idea.  They just designed a hideous body for the car, then gave it to engineers to plop in what I am sure is the same crap as what is in every other Pontiac of that time period to make it drivable.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

aafuni -- Same question I posted some 18 posts ago.  From seyozen's response, it appears more a research project, though he didn't explain why he wanted those specific universities.

Patricia Lougheed

******

Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of the Eng-Tips Forums.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

Oh sorry I forgot about your post.

I think the original post should probably be flagged, however it has resulted in some productive discussion on the education system.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

In high school, we had 2 years (Jr & Sr) of "Mechanical Drawing".  The name may not be exactly accurate, one whole semester, I think Spring of Sr. year, was all Architectural Drawing, and we spent some amount of time on Electrical diagrams.  I guess the name was because we were "drawing mechanically" i.e. on a board with the ortho arm, and not because we would be strictly drawing mechanical things.  I was amazed when I got to college from my little podunk country high school and most of the other kids didn't have a clue.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

I've worked in both the building structures and the mech./equipment/product areas..., High School or early college, makes no difference, but you need a means of communicating your engineering designs (thingies) and thoughts to others, and as we have seen here, all to often, words sure as hell don't do the trick.  Hand sketches and the drafting board, to scale, work fine for me during my design process, the old goat that I am, then red-lining the drawings.  CAD is wonderfully efficient and accurate in the right hands and with the right engineering guidance, but I have to relearn to use it every time I try to use it, because I don't use it enough and it is so complex to manipulate.  And, it can also produce drawings, of thingies, with infinite views, which can't be built, all because the CAD'er. doesn't know the error of his ways, and has no guidance, and that's meaningless  drawing, not design or real drafting.   The CAD screen doesn't give me the same, a real, sense of proportions, fit-up, clearances, spacial relationships, when I have to scroll all over the screen to see the parts that relate, but I can't see them on the same screen at a scale I can see, nor is that any good out in the shop.  It's kinda a wiz-bang, look what I can produce or do, without any real understanding of the facts of the matter, which blows my mind, and produces little of real value, at that stage.  I understand, that in the right hands, it does ultimately produce production drawings.  But, it can also produce a sketch of a structure which the CAD'er. has no idea of how it really works, or if it can really even be built; which leads to many unrealistic questions, showing complete lack of understanding of the problem, but a sketch of that nonetheless.  The best draftsman I ever worked with, never finished high school, but somehow got through a vo.tech. school, and had an incredible mechanical intuition, I never had to tell him anything twice, he wasn't afraid to ask a question if he didn't understand, that's the mentoring thing and the trust that develops in that relationship.  And, CAD however it advances, will never replace that native ability.  Fact is, he was my age, just never had the same college opportunities that my parents provided for and instilled in me.  Finally, I trusted him with engineering for us that I would not have trusted other (real?) engineers to do, who worked around or for us.  He never had CAD, but he had an innate ability, understanding, intuition, which CAD will never replace.  He could make our designs come to life before they were built, so they could be built.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

I started "Engineering Drawing" at the age of 13 at Secondary School.  At 15 I took an "O" Level in Engineering Drawing (and passed :) ).
There followed 2 years part time for a Ordinary National Certificate in Mechanical Engineering which included Engineering Drawing in the first year, but this was really for students who hadn't got their "O" Level.
Finally, there was 3 years part time for a Higher National Diploma which included Engineering Drawing in the first year for those who joined the course with "A" Levels.  (Those of us with an ONC did Physics rather than Engineering Drawing)

There were no computers and certainly no CAD!

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

Engineering Drawing at university was mostly drawing of nature, buildings. The specified textbook on  technical drawing was not used at all.  

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

When I was in school, long before CAD, we used this book:Manual of Engineering Drawing for Students and Draftsmen by Thomas E. French, Charles John Vierck.  It is available for sale by the usual web book sellers.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

Well, after reading all these posts, I will say that, all depends on your position in the company and if the company really use to work a lot with drawings, modifications, new projects, plant changes etc etc..  If the case is that you do not produce much drawings, do not worry and try to get a contractor to work for you when ever you need him. If you really do a lot of drawings work, and you are the boss, you only need to know what you want and ask for it. Now if you are the engineeer incharged of the drawing office, them you have to know very well what you are doing. You have to interprete what the others want and transfer that information to your CAd people, who really are CAD specialists. You learn all CAD features only when you use it frequently if not you will forget it. It is difficult to do everything by yourself, you need delegate and everyone should know what is his responsability.  

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

seyozen,

Off-topic a little but I'm wondering about that ranking list and just how valid the criteria are for a meaningful ranking? Cambridge university at 22nd and Oxford University at 41st position caught my eye, so I looked a bit more deeply. I'm not sure that quality of education is one of the criteria used in this ranking, visibility on the web and availability of internet documents seemingly being more important. A strange list. http://www.webometrics.info/about_rank.html
  

----------------------------------
  
If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!
 

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

As taken from Montana State Univ Catalog:

ME 117 MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DESIGN GRAPHICS
F,S 1 cr. LEC 1
PREREQUISITE: ME and MET majors only, or consent of instructor.
-- Introductory course developing freehand sketching and computer aided modeling techniques for mechanical engineering design graphics. Skills will be developed for sketching and interpreting dimensioned multi-view drawings, tolerancing, specifications, pictorials, and assemblies for mechanical designs.

ME 118 MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DESIGN GRAPHICS LABORATORY
F,S 1 cr. LAB 1
PREREQUISITE: ME and MET majors only, or consent of instructor.
COREQUISITE: ME 117, or ME 115 or consent of instructor.
-- Hands-on laboratory experience in three-dimensional and parametric constraint-based modeling for mechanical engineering design.

In HS, in the 90's, I took drafting, with actual pencils and vellum.  Now, I'm enrolled here at MSU and essentially this is the extent of the technical drawing, with an additional CAM course later in the curriculum.

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

I went to a Technical school for drafting in the mid 80's and had 4 years in high school. We leanred pencil drafting and CAD. My first three jobs were about 60/40 pencil/CAD.

After I spent a few years in the Navy and was taking clases ar Bradley in Peoria, I was shocked that none of the graduating engineering students had ever taken a drafting class.

More recently a recent grad from GaTech told me he only had a couple basic drafting clases prior to college.  

RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

Why would you choose a degree course based largely on a list whose fundamental driver is to encourage the publication of /research/ on the /internet/ ?

I'd base mine on the number of hours spent testing steam engines in the work shop, far more fun and relevant.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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RE: Engineering Graphics and Drawing

"moon,
You from the capitol district area of NY?"

Parents were. Went to happy valley, 'the grove' and troy public library, i mean pub and brewery and split time between Troy and Scotia w/ the grandparents, 93-95.

"And yeah I forgot that option, community schools or trade schools often still teach drawing.  It's funny how sometimes you get more options at the cheaper schools."

I felt very comfortable with my fundamentals when I transferred to SUNY Buffalo. For the most part, at HVCC the professors knew the material and teaching better then a 25 year old TA.  

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