I am currently a lecturer in the Department of Design and Industry at San Francisco State University. I started out teaching the SolidWorks CAD course, and was asked to teach additional design courses after my first semester.

Prior to graduating and becoming a lecturer, I was a TA for graduate level design courses, including Design Research and Design for Rapid Prototyping.

Technical Drawing 3: SolidWorks

SolidWorks is the core CAD package for the industrial design program at SFSU. Whereas many courses and resources approach SolidWorks from a mechanical engineering perspective, in this course I teach students to use the software specifically as part of the industrial design process. After covering the basics of solid part and assembly modeling, we move on to rendering and advanced surface modeling.

Perhaps the most successful aspect of this course has been the website that I developed to support it: www.swxdesign.com. What originated as a simple page to host assignments has evolved into a major educational resource that has earned substantial positive feedback from both within and outside the department. Students have indicated that they appreciate my screen-captured video tutorials in particular.

Below are some samples of student work from the class.

Product Design 1

Product design 1 is the first in the series of core industrial design courses at SFSU. It is a combination lecture and shop work class. I include the following topics:

• Brief history of manufacturing from the industrial revolution
• Shop and materials safety
• Shop tool use (band saw, sanders, mill, hand tools)
• Basic orthographic drafting and measurement
• Modeling in polyurethane foam
• Moldmaking and resin casting
• Acrylic thermoforming
• Basic woodworking and joinery
• Introduction to the iterative design process

Model Development Laboratory

The Model Development Laboratory course is designed to provide students with technical skills in physical model and prototype building to support their work in the core design curriculum. I cover the following topics:

• Shop safety and tool use
• Foam core structural modeling
• High density polyurethane sculpting from orthographic drawings
• Surface preparation, painting, and finishing
• Moldmaking and casting
• Vacuum forming
• Consumer electronics modeling