Monday, October 24, 2016

Mechanical Devices and Geometry

Mechanical Devices and Geometry



If you've ever considered where to find real life examples to be used in your geometry lessons you have to look no further than the companies who develop Mechanical CAD or Computer Added Design software. These websites are filled with several video and image examples of how geometry is used in design to build devices that are used in everyday life. Simply by going to google and typing in Mechanical CAD provides links to limitless examples.

Here are a few;


Examples of their use in a classroom could be at the beginning of a lesson as a hook or breaking down the image to define the various solids, cube, cylinder, sphere, triangular prism, cone, cuboid etc. You could use images and make a game of "finding the solids" and then relate that back how it is used in real life.  
Other opportunities to involve these images into your lessons is to underline how important language is involved in communicating the information presented. Some of the images show dimensions and relationships between parts., units of measure and scale.
With so many various images you can differentiate what is shown by providing more and less complex images.

3 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Students learn to sketch isometric or different views (i.e., top, side, front) in elementary and middle school. These skills can be used later with CAD. Great images that can be used as a hook. Thank you for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It seems to me that this could be a great way to inspire and engage students. It shows a real-life, relevant application that is so commonplace in essentially all technical and/or mechanical devices we see in our everyday lives.

    I wonder if it would be possible to incorporate some kind of technical drawings/activities into one's teaching. It would probably be necessary to then also show some simple/basic technical drawings so as not to overwhelm the students.

    A quick Google images search offers many simple drawings that students could also look at as a starting point, to help envision how simple drawings can be built up into the complex ones such as you have posted above.
    https://www.google.ca/search?q=simple+technical+drawings&safe=strict&rlz=1C1NHXL_enCA721&espv=2&biw=1024&bih=662&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwje_O6f5MvQAhUK3YMKHYRPBbUQ_AUIBigB&dpr=1

    ReplyDelete