Curriculum Reform and Practice of Mechanical CAD/CAM Technology

Abstract

Mechanical CAD/CAM technology is an important course for the mechanical design and manufacturing major. Its scope has a wide teaching content and discipline span, and is regarded a comprehensive course with strong theoretical and practical characteristics. Theoretical teaching was emphasized in the past to undervalue software operation. Unpractical teaching content directly resulted in student’s insufficient practice after the course. Thus, teaching reform measures were proposed, such as optimizing teaching contents, implementing modular teaching, introducing skill-based software, and formulating typical work tasks. Combined with theoretical knowledge, students used the software as a tool to accomplish designated tasks and reach corresponding teaching objectives. Taking mouse punch as an example, MasterCAM software was used to introduce the specific mode of task-oriented teaching in CAD/CAM experiments. Results show that students improve their abilities of applying CAD/CAM software after the course’s teaching reform. Practical engineering problems are analyzed thoroughly and orderly. Employment quantity and quality of graduates are significantly improved to gain praises from enterprises and achieve a remarkable teaching effect.