Work in progress - Students' perceptions and interactions with virtual dissection

This paper will report on the preliminary findings from two universities who, as a part of a NSF-funded nine university collaborative, have implemented virtual dissections through the use of design repositories. Data for the work-inprogress paper was collected via instructor interviews, focus group interviews and student surveys from over 200 students enrolled in sophomore engineering courses at two universities. In the courses students were part of product design teams that took a product, disassembled it, investigated various design and manufacturing issues associated with the products, and then reassembled the product - standard reverse engineering learning activities. However, each project was centered around a national product dissection project and utilized state-of-theart digital design and dissection tools. Groups used product repositories to upload/download digital models of their products and components, along with communication modules. Training for the use of the design repository was provided in class. While this paper will supply information on how other instructors can access some of these cyber-tools and how these tools greatly reduce the cost of product dissection, the main focus of this work-in-progress paper will be to report on how students have interacted with the virtual dissection materials. Among the findings to be reported will be the students' perceptions as to the advantages and disadvantages of virtual, as opposed to real-life, dissections and collaborations. The work-in-progress paper will also report on both instructors' and students' suggestions on how cyber-tools and related technologies can support the reverse engineering process and enhance its impact in product design.