During the Technical Education hours in class 3 B, I introduced the
pupils to technical drawing, as required by the national syllabus.
The objective was to get them to achieve the concept of space and to
give them the grounding for the realization of simple designs.
At the beginning the pupils were involved in learning ortographic projection,
drawing solids or groups of solids in ortographic projection and decoding
isometric projection into ortographic projection.
This first step made it possible for them to understand that volumes
can be drawn on a sheet and that you can notice different aspects of
the same object from different standpoints.
The second step was the presentation of the Extracad 5.0 software which
performs plane drawing and 3D mode.
The pupils progressed from simple plane figures to more complex figures
using relative polar coordinates. So they were enabled to draw with
preset dimensions and, at the moment of dimensioning and scale printing
they were able to check the correctness of their job.
In the third, final stage the pupils faced the 3D mode. After the first ‘expected’ difficulties
(the third dimension is not immediately displayed) the problems were
soon reduced. From the drawing of elementary solids the pupils moved
on to the section, sum, subtraction and intersection of solids.
So, step by step, they experienced a physical sensation of the concept
of point, , line, and plane in the space.
The most brilliant wanted to put themselves to the test, doing more
complicated drawings such as a detached house and a small block of
flats with a four pitched roof.. To carry out these two experiments
they had to face two problems: the union and subtraction of different
solids and the frequent change of the origin and orientation of the
axis triad.
The phase of the final rendering and the orientation of the illlumination
lights was the pleasant, relaxing ending to a challenging job.