Exploring perceptions and attitudes towards teaching and learning manual technical drawing in a digital age

This paper examines the place of manual technical drawing in the 21st century by discussing the perceived value and relevance of teaching school students how to draw using traditional instruments, in a world of computer aided drafting (CAD). Views were obtained through an e-survey, questionnaires and structured interviews. The sample groups represent professional CAD users (e.g. engineers, architects); university lecturers; Technology Education teachers and student teachers; and school students taking Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA) Graphic Communication courses. An analysis of these personal views and attitudes indicates some common values between the various groups canvassed of what instruction in traditional manual technical drafting contributes towards learning. Themes emerge such as problem solving, visualisation, accuracy, co-ordination, use of standard conventions, personal discipline and artistry. In contrast to the assumptions of Prensky's thesis (2001a&b) of digital natives, the study reported in this paper indicate that the school students apparently appreciate the experience of traditional drafting. In conclusion, the paper illustrates the perceived value of such learning in terms of transferable skills, personal achievement and enjoyment

Key courses of academic curriculum uncovered by data mining of students' grades

Learning is a complex cognitive process that depends not only on an individual capability of knowledge absorption but it can be also influenced by various group interactions and by the structure of an academic curriculum. We have applied methods of statistical analyses and data mining (Principal Component Analysis and Maximal Spanning Tree) for anonymized students' scores at Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology. A slight negative linear correlation exists between mean and variance of course grades, i.e. courses with higher mean scores tend to possess a lower scores variance. There are courses playing a central role, e.g. their scores are highly correlated to other scores and they are in the centre of corresponding Maximal Spanning Trees. Other courses contribute significantly to students' score variance as well to the first principal component and they are responsible for differentiation of students' scores. Correlations of the first principal component to courses' mean scores and scores variance suggest that this component can be used for assigning ECTS points to a given course. The analyse is independent from declared curricula of considered courses. The proposed methodology is universal and can be applied for analysis of student's scores and academic curriculum at any faculty

Design principles of hardware-based phong shading and bump-mapping

The VISA+ hardware architecture is the first of a new generation of graphics accelerators designed primarily to render bump-, texture-, environment- and environment-bump-mapped polygons. This paper presents examples of the main graphical capabilities and discusses methods and simplifications used to create high quality images. One of the key concepts in the VISA+ design, the use of reflectance cubes, is predestined for environment mapping. In combination with bump- and texture-mapping it shows the strength of our new architecture. Furthermore it justifies some of the decisions made during simulation and development of the complex VISA+ architecture