InTEL: Presenting online 3D exercises in a statics class

Abstract

While difficulties in the Statics course arise for several reasons, our project seeks to address the problem of context. Our hypothesis is that all students generally, and women and minorities particularly, are more likely to do well in statics when the problems are placed in the context of real world usefulness. Towards that end, we have been developing InTEL (Interactive Toolkit for Engineering Education), a computer-based manipulable environment that supports teaching and learning in statics by mapping images from real-world environments to abstract free-body diagrams for 2D and 3D equilibrium problems. To the best of our knowledge, there are very few online tools students can use to study 3D equilibrium problems. Yet 3D is an important part of statics, and many students struggle with it. We would like to present our software and discuss some of the issues we encountered while developing its 3D module. © 2011 American Society for Engineering Education.