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RcCad and
Education
By
Peter Noonan
IT Teacher
St Andrew's College - Redlynch -
Australia
The local Miniature Helicopter Club approached the
College to incorporate their type of activities into the school
curriculum. The result was the development of a new
elective course. Some details were leaked to the students and a queue started forming. A few students even got their parents totelephone directly in an attempt to jump the line.
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We decided that the course would need
three elements:
- principles of aircraft design
- aircraft modeling
- getting a simulator licence
Then an opportunity to fly the real
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The hardest part for the students
will be designing an aircraft that applies the principles of design that they have learnt. While we do have
AutoCad the learning time and skills levels required are
beyond the intention and purpose of the elective
subject.
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Using RcCad students were up and creating (reshaping) their plane within minutes. They were captured by the screen and the first 15 minutes of play was a very quiet, concentrated, steep learning curve. The immediate 3D rendering of changes
works perfectly for students who are of the 3D generation.
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R cCad was downloaded and put in front of some test
students in less than half an hour. It is fast and efficiently dealt with the students impatience to pull that, turn this, push that. RcCad is one of those small, resourceful programs that does its specific task very well. |
By applying the
principles of aircraft design to a model in RcCad the
students are expressing their knowledge and understandings of
aircraft design without the interference of complicated software or
software that requires a mental translation to three dimensional vision.
Greater success is assured.
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