Mason Dean

Professor Morton
UWRT 1103-066
17 February 2016
Literacy Narrative
Learning for me in general was never a fun thing. I could never find a subject or a course
that I truly enjoyed from start to finish. This all however changed my sophomore year of high
school when I enrolled in the course called drafting. Drafting was basically the prerequisite to
any type of engineering or architecture course that followed at the high school and also assisted
in preparing students for college engineering and architecture. I actually ended up loving this
class so much that I took the next level of the course, engineering drafting 2. For me, drafting
showed me my true passion in engineering which I am currently trying to turn into a career with
an education here at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
When I first signed up for drafting I was extremely excited. I knew what the course was
about and I always knew I loved to build and to see how stuff works. Obviously, having my prior
love for anything to do with how things are built, drafting was the class for me. The first day
proved that when we were required to take a test on our learning styles to see what our learning
styles were and my highest category by a landslide was tactile learning. I also began to develop a
bond with the instructor, Ms. Wallace, who had an amazing sense of humor but also gave no
slack when it came to work and work ethic because she expected nothing but the best from every
student. However, I began to become less fond of the class when we started a segment called
lettering. Lettering was always a problem for me because in order to letter, you had to do precise
perfect marks with your pencil and there was barely any room for error. On top of the precision

needed in order to letter, it took an immense amount of time. I struggled somewhat with this
because I have a condition known as ADHD, so I had a lot of problems with keeping my hands
still enough while lettering in order to produce the perfectly straight lines needed. Unfortunately,
because of my lack of a steady hand, I would lose points regularly on my lettering assignments
which frustrated me immensely. It continued to frustrate me throughout the entire first semester
because all of our assignments required lettering in the title block because every assignment for
the first semester was a hand drawn sketch or graph of an object.
One of the more enjoyable parts of the first semester was doing technical sketches. We
were required to use tools and all sorts of charts to create detailed diagrams of objects of all sorts
for a grade weekly in the course. I had no problem with this and often got ahead of the class so
my instructor would have me go around and help out the other students in the class. The most
enjoyable part of every assignment the first semester was known as the golf ball blaster. Groups
of two students were required to develop a sketch of a gun that shot golf balls that was made out
of various materials but mostly surgical tubing, wooden dowels, and PVC piping. Once you had
completed your sketch, it had to be approved for construction by the instructor who would sign
off on it. The sketch then had to be brought to life in a sense, meaning that every specification
listed in the detailed drawing that was previously created had to be transferred into a real 3D
version of the drawing that was fully functional. The gun then had to shoot ten targets at various
distances in ten shots within a sixty second time frame. The guns were graded on a scale so that
you received ten points per shot that hit the target. However, if all ten shots had not been fired
then the group would lose twenty total points from the final grade. This was even more enjoyable
for me because I got to see something that I had created on a piece of paper come to life in front
of my very eyes. What made this project even better was the fact that my group hit all ten targets

within the time frame and was also the only group to hit all ten as well. I kept the gun because of
how proud I was of it and today it is still sitting in my room at my moms house.
The second semester of drafting one was my favorite by far however, because we were
introduced to the program Inventor. Inventor is an engineering software that allows you to create
3D models of sketches on the computer so that you can see what the finished product looks like
before you even begin the manufacturing of it in real life. I have no clue why but the program
came so naturally to me. After just one month of work I was already three weeks ahead of any
other student in the class. My teacher loved and hated the fact that it came so easily however. She
loved the fact that I was succeeding and producing high quality work in a large quantity, but she
hated it at the same time because she would have to create a whole other classwork regimen just
for me to do while the rest of the class caught up or until we started the next project. The last
project we did was we had to measure out LEGO pieces to a small car that we bought outside of
school, and create the individual pieces inside the Inventor program. Then, with these individual
pieces, we had to assemble the entire car within Inventor and make the car work to the point that
the tires would all rotate and move on a virtual road that was also created within Inventor.
My love for the class steadily grew when at the end of the year award ceremony I was
given the award from Ms. Wallace of Highest Excellence in Drafting. This meant that out of all
of her drafting courses up to drafting four, she viewed me as the best and most successful
student. This was ultimately the greatest factor in me deciding to take the next level of the
course, engineering drafting two.
The highlight of engineering drafting two for me was in the beginning of the second
semester, around the end of February, all of the drafting two classes had an opportunity to take a
three day trip to New York City to study architecture and engineering in real life and to see what

we could possibly be doing as a profession in the future. We ended up touring all of the major
buildings and recreational sights that required great feats of engineering and architecture so that
we could study them to see how hard work and determination in our fields of study could create
some of the most recognizable features in the nation and even in the world.
All in all, drafting in my honest opinion was not only the best learning experience I have
had in probably my entire life, but most likely the reason I am attempting to major in mechanical
engineering today. Drafting showed me how to have fun and enjoy what I am doing when it
comes to work in order to create the best and most efficient product possible, whether that be a
job I am on in the future or just regular everyday schoolwork.