Spatial-visual skills and engineering design

Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2009.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Tseng, Tiffany
Other Authors: Maria C. Yang.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/54486
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author Tseng, Tiffany
author2 Maria C. Yang.
author_facet Maria C. Yang.
Tseng, Tiffany
author_sort Tseng, Tiffany
collection MIT
description Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2009.
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spelling mit-1721.1/544862019-04-10T22:26:13Z Spatial-visual skills and engineering design Tseng, Tiffany Maria C. Yang. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering. Mechanical Engineering. Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2009. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-50). The purpose of this study was to determine whether students with strong spatial-visual skills tend to design more complex mechanisms for the undergraduate course Design and Manufacturing I. The Purdue Spatial Visualization Test was administered to 137 students enrolled in the course. Test scores were compared to student self-evaluations of experience with tasks associated with spatial reasoning such as building origami models and sketching. The complexity of 34 student robots was analyzed using metrics such as the percentage of moving components in the mechanism. Gender differences in scores on the spatial visualization test were significant, consistent with results of prior studies. A significant correlation between spatial reasoning and origami experience was found for male students tested. Most mechanism complexity criteria were not found to be significantly correlated with spatial-visual ability, although the correlation between the percentage of moving components and spatial test scores approached significance with a negative correlation. These results suggest that strong spatial-visual abilities may be used to simplify engineering design rather than increase its complexity. by Tiffany Tseng. S.B. 2010-04-28T15:41:06Z 2010-04-28T15:41:06Z 2009 2009 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/54486 558536230 eng M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 50 p. application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Mechanical Engineering.
Tseng, Tiffany
Spatial-visual skills and engineering design
title Spatial-visual skills and engineering design
title_full Spatial-visual skills and engineering design
title_fullStr Spatial-visual skills and engineering design
title_full_unstemmed Spatial-visual skills and engineering design
title_short Spatial-visual skills and engineering design
title_sort spatial visual skills and engineering design
topic Mechanical Engineering.
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/54486
work_keys_str_mv AT tsengtiffany spatialvisualskillsandengineeringdesign