Mechanix: An Intelligent Web Interface for Automatic Grading of Sketched Free-Body Diagrams

Sketching free body diagrams is an essential skill that students learn in introductory physics and engineering classes; however, university class sizes are growing and often have hundreds of students in a single class. This situation creates a grading challenge for instructors as there is simply not enough time nor resources to provide adequate feedback on every problem. We have developed a web-based application called Mechanix to provide automated real-time feedback on hand-drawn free body diagrams for students. The system is driven by novel sketch recognition algorithms developed for recognizing and comparing trusses, general shapes, and arrows in diagrams. We have discovered students perform as well as paper homework or other online homework systems which only check the final answer through deployment to five universities with 450 students completing homework on the system over the 2018 and 2019 school years. Mechanix has reduced the amount of manual grading required for instructors in those courses while ensuring students can correctly draw the free body diagram

Effects of Computer Simulation and Animation (CSA) on Students’ Problem Solving in Engineering Dynamics: What and How

The application of Computer Simulation and Animation (CSA) in the instruction of engineering dynamics has shown a significant growth in the recent years. The two foremost methods to evaluate the effectiveness of CSA tools, including student feedback and surveys and measuring student change in performance, suggest that CSA modules improve student learning in engineering dynamics. However, neither method fully demonstrates the quality of students’ cognitive changes. This study examined the quality of effects of application of CSA modules on student learning and problem solving in particle dynamics. It also compared CSA modules with textbook-style problem-solving regarding the changes they cause in students’ cognitive process. A qualitative methodology was adopted to design and implement a study to explore the changes in participants’ learning and problem-solving behavior caused by using a CSA module. Collected data were coded and analyzed using the categories of cognitive process based on the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy. An analysis of the results revealed that the most significant effects were observed in understanding, analyzing, and evaluating. The high frequency of “inference” behavior after working with modules indicated a significant increase in participants’ understanding activity after working with computer modules. Comparing behavior changes of computer-simulation group students with those who worked with a textbook-style example demonstrated that the CSA modules ignited more analytical behavior among students than did textbook-style examples. This study illustrated that improvement in learning due to the application of CSA is not limited to conceptual understanding; CSA modules enhance students’ skills in applying, organizing, and evaluating as well. The interactive characteristics of CSA play a major role in stimulating students’ analytical reasoning and critical thinking in engineering dynamics

Diagram-based intelligent tutoring systems

This work first presents two implementations of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) on engineering undergraduate-level diagram education: StaticsTutor for free-body diagram and Thermo Cycle Tutor for refrigeration T-v diagram. Initial investigations on several groups of students have shown their educational effectiveness. Unlike text-based input, diagram has some intrinsic challenges that lead it hard to teach. One example is conceptual knowledge is highly interconnected with procedural knowledge. Learned from the two ITSs, we provided some general pedagogical guidelines for the future Diagram-based ITSs. Also, we learned classes can be used as a way of representing geometric shapes in diagrams. Thus, we extended our work to the generality of how the current approach can be applied to other domains. We chose a popular type of diagram, called Block Diagram, which contains geometric objects and lines/arrows in connecting them. We developed a methodology to represent a diagram’s information and an ontology of diagram evaluation processes to diagnose students\u27 diagrams. Our work contributes to the development of Diagram-based ITSs authoring tools

Deployment and Evaluation of an AI-Augmented Tutoring Application in a Classroom Setting

Mechanix is an online application created by the sketch recognition lab at Texas A&M. The application assists student understanding of sketching Free Body Diagrams, through the use of an AI augmented drawing surface used to assist in automated tutoring and grading of subjects that employ FBDs. Deployed at 5 universities across the United states, the evaluation of the impacts of the application has been conducted by members of the iDREEM lab under the advisement of Dr. Julie Linsey. Through the course of the experiment, the application has been shown to have an equal effect as traditional homework methods on student understanding of most engineering concepts related to statics and Dynamics. It has also been shown that the application has a net positive effect on students application of difficult engineering concepts, especially related to open ended design problems.M.S