I'm currently a fourth semester Naval Engineer which means I am in the middle of my first specialized class at Stevens. This class is Introduction to Ship Design and Ship Building. I'm starting to dive into the design process and how it's used in the industry. Conveniently enough, I just finished a homework assignment that ties into this class, Computers & Society. The prompt gave a table of different types of measurements along the hull of a certain vessel and my job was to take those numbers, and draw three views of the boat; front, side, and bottom. This required a lot of time, care, and detail to make sure my sketches were consistent with the measurements given to me. Of course, being the 21st century college student I realized that this would be much simpler with Computer-Aided Design. With the measurements given to me, I could form a 3-Dimensional shape and then the views would be easy enough to produce by looking at the finished product from different angles. Why couldn't that be our homework? I'm sure current ship design and production comes from CAD, so wouldn't doing this on a computer be helpful?
My professor told us when he assigned the work about conversations he's had with professionals in the field, specifically those who work with recent Stevens graduates. He said that most new employees lack pencil and paper skills. They are whizzes when it comes to computers but if there is an issue that needs a drawing by hand, they are clueless. So, my professor said that for a good portion of the class, we will be sticking with pencil and paper to learn and apply the new concepts. Sounds grueling.
I for one am not too thrilled about making drawings all semester that range from 11" x 17" to 6 feet long, These take vast amounts of time, but the concept raises a good point. While computers do make almost everything simpler, they take away from the learning experience. I know I will be more skilled than students elsewhere who predominantly focus on CAD and CAE. It's another quality that I have as an engineer and it made me understand better. Rather than knowing what each measurement brought me in a figure in a computer program, I learned what each measurement and label really means because the computer didn't give the the answer and the right output.
In Computers & Society, we often discuss computers and technology dulling us down as skilled humans and this is a great example of that. I agree we need to learn the fundamentals of what we're doing before we can advance our projects through the assistance of a computer. That way, the computer doesn't do the work for us, it just produces it in a nicer fashion after we understand what all the content means. By neglecting a computer, we do the brunt of the work ourselves and become more creative and knowledgeable rather than a boring employee who just inputs data into a computer program.
I absolutely agree with you. I feel that while technology is supposed to be used as an aide for engineers, it is more often that not, used as a crutch. I for one can attest that I have made models on SolidWorks in a matter of minutes that would take me hours to draw by hand. Not because of complexity, but due to a lack of imagination.
ReplyDeleteI think this issue applies to almost all forms of technology. Whether it be us relying on Wolframalpha too much in order to solve our Math homework or using Google Maps all the time instead of learning how to read road signs and develop a sense of direction. I commend your teacher for raising that awareness and hope that we, as engineers especially, can still be called engineers without our computers.