Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Upon completion of the course students will be able to:

• Utilize the power and precision of AutoCAD as a drafting and design tool used in the mechanical design and manufacturing industries.

• Apply basic CAD concepts to develop and construct accurate 2D geometry through creation of basic geometric constructions.  

• Create, manipulate and edit 2D drawings and figures.

• Apply elements of mechanical drafting such as layers, dimensions, drawing formats, and 2D figures in projects with a focus on ANSI industry standards.

Instructor activities:  

• Provide lectures using AutoCAD software, demonstrating commands via user interface and typed commands. Use examples and projects seen in the CAD and drafting industry.  

• Demonstrate AutoCAD commands and workflow through lecture and videos.  

• Show industry standard procedures to solve various drafting and CAD related industry problems.  

• Oversee open lab time to assist students in assigned projects. Use questions and reinforce lecture material for guiding students to complete projects.  

• Coach students to instill confidence and develop the ability for self teaching.  

Student activities:

• Students will receive in class projects that will be completed during lab session both individually and as groups.

• Students will receive quiz based assessment projects to reinforce topics.

• Students will selective read textbook sections and apply this knowledge of AutoCAD to demonstrate proficiency.  

• Complete assignments, projects, test or quiz problems, and class activities which apply real-life situations to computer aided design and drafting scenarios encountered in industry using AutoCAD.  

• Complete activities, assignments, and exams, which show an understanding of AutoCAD projects and design problems related to the computer aided design and drafting profession.

• Participate in, and contribute to, class discussions, activities and projects

Assessment must include evaluation of the student's ability to arrive at correct drawings or designs using proper procedures and notation with AutoCAD for making 2D drawings.  

At least two of the following additional measures must also be used:

Take-home examinations

Graded homework

Quizzes

Projects

In-class activities

THEMES:

• AutoCAD software fundamentals

• Problem solving

• Effective communication

• Critical thinking

• Graphical Communications with manufacturing and construction personnel using graphical representations of physical objects.

SKILLS:

• Understand the AutoCAD environment by creating new drawings, opening existing drawings and saving drawings.

• Locate and use commands from toolbars and access pulldown menus and from the keyboard.

• Create and save new drawings as templates

• Working with drawings by creating basic geometry and utilize basic editing commands.

• Use the line, circle, arc, polyline, polygon, rectangle, and ellipse commands to draw simple geometric shapes.  Understand coordinate systems and specify geometry needed to draw in the AutoCAD environment.

• Create accurate drawings using the system snap, and polar snap tools.

• Create and modify grid and snap spacing.  Understand and modify drafting settings.  Use object snap and polar tracking to create accuracy within the drawing.

• Work with layers and linetypes by creating, managing, and altering the display of color, layers, and linetypes and lineweights in a drawing.

• Access the layer dialog box, create layers and change settings of layers.

• Use the move, copy, rotate, scale, stretch, explode, break, trim and extend commands.  Use different methods of selecting objects to be edited.

• Create and modify text styles, create Mtext, demonstrate knowledge of scaling text.

• Create, manage and alter the display of blocks in a drawing. Create symbols as blocks.  Understand saving storage and retrieval of blocks. Use blocks in a drawing. Use the design center to add block to drawings.

• Create and manage layouts, viewports and page setups.

• Plot drawings to scale by creating plots that are accurately scaled with appropriate linetype scaling and lineweights.