Cultivating Students’ Innovation Ability in Teaching Mechanical Design

At present, most of our graduates have the phenomenon of inability of theory and practice and lack of innovation ability. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the cultivation of students’ innovation ability according to the requirements of society for talents.

Innovative teaching ideas

Teachers should be aware of the importance of innovation

In teaching, teachers play an important role in guiding and directing, and they also play the role of role models. Teachers’ teaching ideas will influence students implicitly and have certain influence on students’ future learning. If teachers themselves fail to conduct in-depth research and study of knowledge, or even have a sense of innovative education, it will directly affect the cultivation of students’ innovative abilities. Teachers should affirm students’ unique ideas, guide students to master knowledge and skills, and teachers themselves should have a creative spirit and innovative ability in addition to professional mechanical design ability, so as to facilitate better implementation of innovative education.

Cultivating innovation as an important purpose of mechanical design teaching

The traditional mechanical design teaching aims to let students master the basic mechanical parts design principles and methods, without putting innovation education in an important position. Teachers should reform the traditional teaching methods and focus on cultivating students’ innovation ability. If you want to make mechanical innovation, you have to master the theory of mechanical design first, combine the basic teaching with cultivating students’ ability effectively, and take the basic theory and innovation ability together as the content of assessment and evaluation when conducting the final assessment, in order to realize the ultimate purpose of teaching.

Innovative teaching theory

Innovative teaching course content

The traditional teaching course design focuses on making students master the theory of mechanical design with high logic, but seriously neglects students’ practical ability, students have a full belly of knowledge, but do not know how to apply it, and will be at a loss in practice.

Teachers should appropriately reform the content of the teaching curriculum, take mechanical design as the main line, focus on cultivating students’ innovation ability, and form a new mechanical design curriculum system. For example, the basic mechanical design is divided into three modules, respectively, the part of the overview, commonly used institutions, universal institutions, in the overview is divided into design ideas, design theory, design process, commonly used institutions are divided into connecting rod mechanism, cam mechanism, intermittent mechanism, spiral mechanism, universal institutions are divided into gear transmission, belt transmission, worm gear transmission, shaft and bearing, connecting rod.

In this way, the contents of the course are sorted out and appropriate project teaching methods are used to focus on developing students’ problem-solving skills on the basis of mastering theory. Using examples in engineering as the starting point, we take solving engineering problems as the ultimate goal to achieve a better combination of theory and practice. Teaching is a step-by-step process, and the cultivation of innovation ability also needs time to settle down. It is necessary to lay a good theoretical foundation for students first, on which the cultivation of innovation ability can be carried out.

Cultivate students’ innovation ability in engineering examples

Only by putting the theory in engineering examples can we play the role of teaching to ensure that students can better combine theory with practice and improve their innovation ability and spirit of innovation. For example, the emergence of automatic washing machines, automatic washing machines have mechanical control type, electrical control type, fuzzy control type, these three types of washing machines are not different from other transmission systems except in the control mode, students through the analysis of the working principle of automatic washing machines to facilitate a better grasp of the theoretical basis and deepen the impression.

Students have to grasp the importance of mechanical innovation through the changes of washing machines, to make students understand that innovation is not an empty imagination, but a social development need, as long as they study and think carefully and have a solid theoretical foundation, they can complete the innovation of mechanical design.

Adopt modern teaching methods

In the teaching of mechanical design, students should be given the environment to give full play to their imagination and creativity. With the continuous development of modern information technology, teachers can use multimedia technology to make the text “live” by using videos, pictures, simulated structural movements and three-dimensional animations to make students interested in learning. For example, when explaining the working principle of industrial robots, multimedia technology can be used to make students understand the principle of its operation more intuitively, stimulate students’ initiative and improve their sense of innovation.

Focus on explaining the latest development of mechanical design, innovative mechanical design means

Teachers should update the knowledge system in a timely manner, based on the actual development, to explain to students the new design concepts, means, standards, methods, etc.. For example, the new design software Pro/E, UG, Adams this type of advanced software, new design ideas, nowadays advocate green mechanical products, etc., so as to improve the height of students’ design thinking and achieve advanced and fast design means.

Innovative experimental teaching

In mechanical design teaching, experiments are essential, the use of experimental teaching can deepen students’ understanding of the theory, the traditional experimental teaching, only to verify a certain mechanical design principles, the lack of a certain degree of creativity, is not conducive to the cultivation of students’ innovative ability.

With the continuous updating of the curriculum, the way of experiments should be changed appropriately, and the previous demonstration experiments should be turned into exploratory experiments, and the students’ spirit of exploration should be fully developed, with teachers playing a guiding role and students carrying out the experimental design by themselves, integrating their learned knowledge and strengthening their sense of innovation in the process of experiments. For example, in the experiment of reducer disassembly, students should not only understand the basic reducer theory such as the structure of the reducer casting box, the structure of gears and shaft system, but also broaden the knowledge system and link it to the reality, thinking about what mechanical products use the reducer and what role does the reducer play in the product?

The school can also introduce some comprehensive experimental benches for mechanical innovation, so that students can design experiments with their own hands and stimulate their innovative thinking, thus improving their innovative ability.

In order to meet the needs of society and the reform of teaching, teachers should cultivate students’ innovative ability and lay the foundation for their future life learning. The cultivation of innovative ability should keep pace with the times, and teachers should keep exploring to cultivate more high-quality skilled talents for social and economic construction and achieve sustainable social and economic development.