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Stage 1C - Practice Mechanisms

Stage 1C offers an excellent opportunity to help students develop and reinforce their CAD skills through focused practice exercises. This guide provides suggestions for effectively teaching these exercises in a classroom setting.

Learning Objectives

Students who complete Stage 1C will:

  • Apply fundamental CAD techniques learned in previous stages to model complete mechanisms
  • Practice using COTS components and Featurescripts effectively
  • Learn industry-standard organizational practices for assemblies and part studios
  • Develop problem-solving skills through increasingly independent modeling tasks

Teaching Structure

Progressive Independence

Stage 1C gradually reduces guidance with each exercise, helping students transition from following detailed instructions to working more independently. The early exercises provide step-by-step instructions, while later ones give only high-level direction. This progression helps build student confidence.

Exercise Sequence

Break the exercises into manageable chunks across multiple class periods:

  1. Exercises 1-2 (Flat Intake & Dead Axle Rollers): Heavily guided introduction to mechanism modeling
  2. Exercises 3-4 (Ball Shooter & Telescoping Hook): Moderate guidance with increased complexity
  3. Exercises 5-6 (Flipped Gearbox & Direction Swap): Limited guidance to build independence
  4. Exercises 7-8 (Vertical Rollers & Indexer Centering): Minimal guidance for near-independent work

Teaching Tips

Concept Reinforcement

Before each exercise, review relevant concepts like: - Layout sketches and design intent - Assembly organization and mating - Use of COTS components and Featurescripts

Common Challenges

Watch for and address these frequent student difficulties: - Over-constraining assemblies - Disorganized feature trees - Inefficient modeling approaches - Poor design intent capture

Assessment Opportunities

Monitor student progress through: - Completion of exercise requirements - Quality of modeling practices - Organization of assemblies and part studios - Independence in problem-solving - Ability to explain design decisions

Extension Activities

For advanced students who complete exercises early: - Challenge them to modify designs for different requirements - Have them create variations with different COTS components - Ask them to document their modeling process to share with peers

Success Indicators

Students are ready to move on when they can: - Complete mechanisms with minimal guidance - Organize their work professionally - Use COTS parts and Featurescripts effectively - Explain their modeling decisions - Troubleshoot common issues independently

The key is maintaining a balance between structured guidance and independent practice while ensuring students develop good CAD habits. It might be a good idea to have students run through these twice as extra practice. They should be able to easily recreate these assemblies with high quality.