Learner's Experience About Freehand Sketching Vs CAD For Concept Ideation Process During Product Design Development

During the engineering product development cycle, while going through the concept ideation stage, it is very important to accelerate the thinking process and to represent concept ideas in front of colleagues to brainstorm and refine for faster product design and its development. Availability and use of different computer-aided design (CAD) tools in the market made this concept generation process longer and time-consuming due to its limitation on detailing and editing. As an alternative, freehand sketching is very quick and easily editable which focuses on quantity rather than quality which allows healthy discussion and quick adjustment towards a valid and relevant design proposal. To explore learner's (students') experiences of concept ideation while studying product design and development, different freehand sketching tools were introduced like the use of some software instead of just traditional pen and paper kind of freehand sketching during the start of the trimester to quickly represent their ideas amongst their peers. During the later part of detail design, they used CAD tools. In this paper, a few examples are provided to show students' freehand sketching skills during concept ideation and the use of CAD tools for detailed design drawing. The effectiveness of this approach is measured through a survey conducted for students at the end of the trimester and it has been evaluated based on the survey results. They were asked to give responses based on their experience during the trimester. The results suggest that it is very important to emphasize the use of freehand sketching during concept ideation and the utility of CAD tools at the detail design stage of the product design development to achieve the learning outcomes of the module of Design and Manufacture 1 at the University of Glasgow, Singapore (UGS).