foolfillment: the blog

I’ve put together a wee tutorial on using Autodesk Inventor. I’ve been using the Professional 2008 version but most of it transfers across to other versions.

It is based around a series of screenshots hosted in a set on flickr with supporting notes. It works really well if you click through the set image by image. This is the first screen.

Flickr’s slideshow transitions mean that it is pretty slick when you watch it that way, although the notes added on top of the images don’t show - anyone know of a way around this other than editing the images themselves?

I’d love to know what people think of it, it was only a couple of hours work but would be nice to know I’ve not wasted that time.

I visited Prestonpans Primary School today and I was taken amazed by what I saw. This was the first time I’ve been in a primary school since I was a pupil myself so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, but I was fairly certain that I’d see teachers there showing me a thing or too about how to deliver great lessons: learning intentions shared along with negotiated success criteria, all the pupils active and collaborating; and colourful classrooms that are exciting places to be. This is almost exactly what I saw, I’m shattered now and I didn’t really have to do much - turns out observing in a primary school is a much more involving event than observing in a secondary. The energy that all the teachers put in to their lessons and the enthusiasm from the pupils was quite staggering, and I should take the chance to say a huge thank you to all of the staff who let me take part in their day.

Somewhere along the way from primary to secondary there seems to be something that removes so much excitement about learning, that stifles the boundless creativity that children have. I’m going back in to school tomorrow with a fresh determination to make every lesson count. Something that I find difficult in my subject area is making every lesson count in it’s own right as a learning experience. So often what I am working on with my classes is a project that spans over more many lessons, where the learning comes from practising practical skills, or where because of resources pupils all work on different things on different days, this makes teaching things to a whole group in 1 50 minute slot near impossible.

Something that was said to me the other week was that Graphic Communication is one subject where you can really work on your teaching skills, it is the subject where you can work on much smaller pieces of work and have a lesson dedicated to each part. It offers challenges to explain difficult concepts and procedures to a variety of different abilities. This idea came up because I was delighted to have regained an S2 Graphics class, I was sharing them on my original timetable back in August but lost them for a while when the timetable changed a few months ago. Thankfully I got them back the other week and I am thoroughly enjoying taking them again, I hope they are too! Now the challenge is to make every lesson with them count, to share those learning intentions better…to have them more active too I hope, I have some plans for this which you may see on the RHS CDT blog (if technology doesn’t let me down).

Ollie Bray wrote tonight about how much he likes the Commoncraft video tutorials. I felt compelled to leave a comment.

I first saw their video on RSS a few months ago and I couldn’t watch it all the way through, being perfectly honest I found his voice hugely off putting. I was put off by the accent and the silly humming at the start. It meant I didn’t pick up on how well a difficult subject was put across until relatively recently.

Anyway, I felt compelled to leave a comment for Ollie saying just that, but as I typed my comment it grew into a post in it’s own right. I got thinking that if only the videos had regional variations then I’d like them much more, as I was watching the new one on photosharing I was struck just how simple it was to put together - I mean the technology for doing so, actually coming up with such a clear an engaging presentation takes a very clever person indeed.

I got thinking that it would be dead easy for a group of pupils to recreate these presentations, they’d pick up a lot of skills in doing so, and even if they just copied the story it would still be an exciting and beneficial task there for pupils of any age.

Now, how is this tied into Graphic Communication? For those of you outwith the subject: in Standard Grade one of the folio pieces that pupils usually make is a storyboard of how to…make a cup of tea/iron a shirt/draw a monkey etc. These are always paper based and hand drawn, it’s a fun task for most pupils. Now, my argument is that these are great skills to have (manual illustration, information layout on a page, choice of colour and typeface and so on…) but, these skills are already used in lots of the folio pieces. In terms of the literal meaning of Graphic Communication videos like these are a perfect example, and if you were to make them like the common craft videos then you still have the manual drawing skills.

This is just another thought about where the subject could go to keep it relevant and interesting for pupils - as well as future employers. What do you think?

I’m sure many subjects could claim this sort of task so why not me? I may look into trying this with my S4 Graphics class sometime…

I’m hoping to use flickr tomorrow - it may not work depending on the school’s internet connection. The lesson will be an exercise introducing Assemblies in Inventor, a 3D modelling package. I’ve put together a few screenshots of the exercise the class are to do and then given instructions alongside them in a new photoset in flickr. Just so you can share in the joy of learning about constraints I’m going to make it all available here. I’ll make the files needed available here too and also put together a powerpoint with the images in case you can’t access flickr at your school.

Here is the flickr set, it’ll work best if you view it as a slideshow.
Here are the Inventor Parts you will need.
Here is the powerpoint in ppt format.

I’m also going to make the photos open for comments and notes and encourage my class to make use of that - will they take up the chance of an audience? (unfortunately I think it might only be a few as it requires them to be a flickr member - boo!)

I’m on the look out for a camera/camcorder/webcam that I can use in my Graphic Communication classes and would like any advice/ideas people might have.

The idea is that it will be rigged up over a drawing board with the output displayed through a digital projector. How it works is open.

Ideally it will perform well in varied lighting conditions and will have an AV output.

Any suggestions? Could I go with a swish webcam and run it through a PC without losing too much quality? Or I could try to find a compact digital camera that runs from mains and doesn’t turn off automatically when no buttons get pressed for a while? Or should I just try to find the wee bit extra cash to get a cheapish DV Camera?

Or, does anyone have an expertise in making pinhole cameras?

I am trying to deal with a question that has been eating away at me: What is the point of Graphic Communication? Literally graphic communication is enormously important, sending and receiving information in graphical means is something that I think everyone needs to be able to do. To me though as a subject taught in Scottish schools it is lacking enough relevance and coherence. I must immediately follow that up with this: I really enjoyed sitting the subject and I really enjoy teaching all aspects of it. I enjoy the course, I just feel a little ill at ease with it and in this post I’m trying to work out why and to illicit some response.

This post is longer than most of my usual ones so I’ll try and reel you in with some questions. I hope they are contentious enough to make you read on!
Why do we bother teaching orthographics?
Why on earth do we teach oblique parallel?
Why don’t we just bin all of our drawing boards and just take all drawings from computer generated models?
Instead of building up a folio of pre-selected drawings why don’t the pupils select what they think are the appropriate drawings?
Why is it not based around a theme of design?

Any of those started you grumbling?

For the sake of focussing discussion a little I’m going to look at the Standard Grade, these are the areas of the course content roughly (crudely?) summarised:

use of drawing instruments
reading and interpreting drawings
different line types for illustrating different things
how to sketch/draw different shapes and forms in different views
dimensions;
effective use of scale
recognising and using common graphical symbols
2D computer draughting, including text and common representative symbols

display of information - creating/interpreting graphs and diagrams
colour theory - demonstrate effective use of colour, justify choice
effective use of variety of media - colour pencils, markers, pastels
layout and lettering - achieving visual impact, Desktop Publishing, page layout
modelling - in card or paper or other suitable media

state the advantages/disadvantages of Computer Aided Drawing
identify and understand the function of various pieces of computer hardware
demonstrate a knowledge of graphic software packages

You might have noticed I’ve grouped them together a little. At the top is the content covering drawings; then a section that covers communicating information; then a section of what are, in my view, discrete facts to be regurgitated.
These three sections roughly relate to the three assessable areas which are supposed to have equal weighting, but you will see that the section on drawing has a lot more content than the other two (I said my summary was crude!) which leads me to one of the things I want to talk about : Why do we spend so much time on manual drawing methods? And why do we spend so much time on drawing types?
Another thing I want to discuss is how 3D modelling should fit in to the course. It is a bone of contention for a lot of people, but the software is here and it is changing things outside of school, should we not try to keep up?

Why do we spend so much time on manual drawing methods?
And why do we spend so much time on drawing types?

Perhaps around 70% of time in Standard Grade is spent teaching pupils how to create drawings using manual instruments, only around one third of the available marks come from this.
This could mean certain things
- the manual drawing is too hard/other areas are too easy for the marks available
- we are wasting our time and disadvantaging the pupils by not teaching the elements equally
- or the manual drawing skills pervades everything else, while we only assess part of it directly

So why do we teach manual graphics so heavily? What are we aiming for with this course? Is it to: produce young people who can draw a perfectly neat and accurate pencil representation of an artefact from a given view? Or is it to produce young people who are equipped to communicate ideas to and from other people in a variety of ways, and who are able to select the most effective method of communication, beit graphical or otherwise?
The latter has to be the aim for the course, for that reason my view is that the emphasis on manual technique is too great.

By all means teach the different types of view, but do it quickly and explain that very often they are of limited use. Explain that depending on the situation people illustrate things in different ways. Spend time on the technical drawing types that are of most use and explain why. Teaching the skills to create these drawings is important, it improves anyone’s ability to get ideas across, but teaching how to pick and create appropriate methods of communication allows for much more.

We should be furnishing the learners with the skills that will allow them to communicate ideas effectively in a variety of ways - teach the theory of presentation as well as the skills. Why spend ages on the terminology of DTP packages, or the many different types of site plan, garden layouts, maps, circuit diagrams? Instead get across the importance of clear layout, clarity of information, visual impact, colour theory, font selection, appropriate scale. Get across the bits that really matter to every situation instead of trying to cover every situation and stating the bits that matter. (I suppose this argument is similar to the one about why geography teachers have to spend time teaching all the symbols on a map when a map comes with a key)

The aim of the course has to be to give the pupils the skills/understanding of how to communicate effectively in their lives after school, not to give them discrete knowledge about things that in all probability they won’t come across.

So how do you do this? Well, how about through a folio of work? Each pupil could be given a brief: They are to create a series of items that communicate certain ideas to certain people. Who decides who these people are shouldn’t matter, perhaps the pupils select the audience, perhaps they are given a list to choose from - the idea has to be that the pupil has the task of communicating information to a range of groups of people. They would select and design the most appropriate methods to do that, and justify why.
The folio as it stands puts emphasis on using certain predetermined types of drawings and graphics, this would instead put the emphasis on understanding methods of communication without dropping the skills required to produce the drawings and graphics.

The question about why we spend so much time on manual boards teaching orthographics leads me directly to my next question:
How should 3D modelling packages fit into Graphic Communication?

Why do we spend so long using manual techniques when there is only a very small chance that anyone will use a drawing board outside of a school? (Am I right in saying this?) Why shouldn’t we just start teaching orthographics using a CAD package? Going further, why do we bother teaching orthographics at all? I think that is the question that will rile some people. I’m not actually suggesting that there is no place for drawings of certain views. What I am getting at is this : Is there an actual need to learn how to draw orthographic views anymore when you can make a computer model of an object and then generate any view from that?

I can understand that there is a need to be able to interpret drawings, but do you need to draw these drawings to be able to read them? If the skill is to interpret the drawings could we not give out a set of drawings and get the pupils to model them?

There is a danger though of the course becoming a ‘How to use Autodesk Inventor/Pro-Engineer/etc’ which in my view wouldn’t be desirable. How could that be avoided? What about bringing into the course a strong element of design? Have the pupils design an artefact to fit a brief, then model it and create a folio of drawings to present it to a client? Does this sail too close to Product Design? Is it be a bad thing if it does?

That’s where I’m going to leave it. What do you think? How do you feel about the courses as they stand? Please comment with your thoughts, I’d love to hear them so please comment and encourage others to do so as well.

One last point - please don’t be too negative, we can often be too quick to moan in this country, let’s instead be enthusiastic and constructive. As I said at the start I really enjoy graphics, and I’d like to make it better for the young people who sit it.

Ok, go!

I’ve had a post brewing for a while, I wanted to gauge opinion before I posted it though.

First of all, I really liked the course when I sat it, I enjoy teaching all of the aspects of it. All of the time though I have a nagging question eating at me: what is the point of Graphic Communication?

I have a few reservations about the course’s relevance to the people who sit it. I’d love to get involved in a discussion about its future, its validity in today’s world, the appropriateness of its content.

If you have any opinions about the course please get in touch. I’m going away for a week on Saturday so there won’t be much noise from me until after that but I’d still really like to know if there are any strong opinions out there.

From here you can access the whole range of resources that I have for Higher Graphic Communication. Under each section there are AutoCad files for each of the drawings, these are supported by versions of the same object, modelled in AutoDesk Inventor. The AutoCad files were put together by Tom Bruce, the inventor parts and assemblies have been contributed by various people.

Feel free to use them however you like under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 UK: Scotland licence. This means that you can use and edit the files, but you must give credit to the original creator. If you share your derived work it must be covered by the same licence. Read more about the licence here.

This is very much a work in progress, it will take a long time for me to do them all, I would love your contributions. Please get in touch if you can help.

Also, I am really pretty lazy - I haven’t tested the links, nor have I tested that the assembly files open properly. I would really appreciate it if you let me know if you find something that doesn’t work. I am certain that there will be some glitches here somewhere.

Finally, if you have any feedback (positive or negative) about this project then I would really appreciate it if you left a comment below.

Technical Graphics 1
- Section A Estimated Perspective*
- Section B Measured Perspective
- Section C Isometric Views
- Section D Oblique Views
- Section E Planometric Views*
- Section F Assemblies
- Section G Exploded Views*
- Section H Sectional Views*
- Section I Geometric Construction
- Section J Tangency and Ellipse Construction*
- Section K Illustration and Presentation*

Technical Graphics 2
- Section A Sectional Views*
- Section B Assembly Views*
- Section C Exploded Views*
- Section D Auxiliary Views*
- Section E Location Drawing*
- Section F Tolerances*
- Section G The Three Ps

*The sections marked with an asterisk are ones that have not yet been completed.

The images link to a large version on flickr, the Inventor files and AutoCad files are also available for you to open and edit as you wish. Please leave a comment below if you have any problems or spot any errors.

Go to the whole list of resources.

All Inventor files have been made by myself and are protected under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 UK: Scotland licence, this basically means you can use/edit them in any way you like as long as: you give attribution to me, you do not make money from them, and that if you make your edited versions available they must be covered by the same licence. All other files have been put together and altered by various people. I believe they were originally put together by Tom Bruce.

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The images link to a large version on flickr, the Inventor files and AutoCad files are also available for you to open and edit as you wish. Please leave a comment below if you have any problems or spot any errors.

Go to the whole list of resources.

All Inventor files have been made by myself and are protected under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 UK: Scotland licence, this basically means you can use/edit them in any way you like as long as: you give attribution to me, you do not make money from them, and that if you make your edited versions available they must be covered by the same licence. All other files have been put together and altered by various people. I believe they were originally put together by Tom Bruce.
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