Starting from the premise that errors are inherent to the design process, this study aims to contribute to their prevention and reduction by evaluating the ability of future engineers to recognize and mitigate these errors in the future. The study is applied to 38 students of a Computer Aided Design (CAD) course.

An experiment was conducted to determine whether students could identify different types of errors (sheet format and title block, dimensional, annotation, view and alignment, and basic and advanced standardization errors) deliberately added in a 2D drawing. Firstly, they were asked to identify the errors by observing the 2D drawing, and afterward, in a second phase, while generating the 3D model from the information provided in the drawing. The results revealed that, depending on the type of error the percentage of detection varies from 0% to 90% (total). From the 2D drawings, the most frequently detected errors were related to dimensional and basic standardization errors. The less detected errors were related to sheet format and title block, annotation, and advanced standardization errors. After generating the 3D model, students identified an additional 5% of errors related mainly to dimensioning.

This study underscores the importance of minimizing errors from the early stages of design. Its findings can help explore alternative error prevention strategies, such as negative knowledge, to improve the technical drawings of future engineering professionals.

Keywords: Error prevention, error detection, 2D drawing, 3D CAD model, negative knowledge.