NEED HELP: How to teach AutoCAD

[DanL]

I agree with all the people who say the only way to learn CAD is to do it hands-on. I taught myself CAD last year, and the only way you learn it is to do it. You can tell them all the little tricks and methods you want, but unless they go and do it themselves, they're not going to remember exactly which tool is used for what.

If you can't get a computer lab, my suggestion is to talk to the veteran members on the team who have Inventor/Solidworks/any CAD program and actually have them bring their computers in - not necessarily laptops, but their actual computers. Yeah, some people are going to feel uneasy about that, but try to convince them the reason computers have cases is to make them movable. Even if you can get just three or four machines, you could have all the members break up into small groups and try to do on their machine what you're doing on the projector.

I learned CAD through a series of videos I obtained which basically consisted of a man doing the actual drawing on a projector behind him. From personal expierience, I can guarentee you that if you just show them how its done and don't give them a chance to play with the program, nothing's going to sink in. One way or another, they need to actually touch the program in their own hands.