Skills development: Technical writing, presentation, and teamwork through engineering graphics

Physics Enterprises, Andrews University, was desirous of documenting their designs and updating the equipment manuals and designs. No engineering drawings existed for the equipment they develop, manufacture and sell internationally. For the course engineering graphics, it was desired to have a class project in a real life experience in technical briefing, technical writing, presentation and team building. The two needs perfectly matched. This paper demonstrates how engineering graphics can be used to develop skills and team building in undergraduate freshmen and between university departments. A mixed freshman class was organized into a team and subgroups and using freehand sketching and CAD software, through a process of reverse engineering, successfully developed final engineering drawings. The results were presented to a new engineering graphics class by the previous class. Valuable lessons were learnt in instructor and client availability, balance of work and significance of real life experience.