Solving Electrical Engineering Puzzles Using Spatial Reasoning

Abstract

The precursor of any problem-solving strategy is the visualization of the problem at hand. When dealing with problems pertaining to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) areas, visualization plays a very significant role in addressing the same. Several initiatives are being taken to improve the visualization skills of the students and spatial reasoning techniques have proved to be one of the most widely accepted tools for addressing the problems in the STEM field. In this paper, we specifically address the use of spatial reasoning to solve problems in the form of puzzles taken from electrical engineering and analyze the fruitfulness of employing such a strategy. The puzzles are hosted in an online interactive framework called UNTANGLED and classified into different categories on the basis of the nature of the puzzles and their difficulties. The results indicate that spatial reasoning technique indeed helped the players to successfully complete the puzzles. The interpretation of the data led to the conclusion that spatial reasoning techniques are imperative when it comes to discerning and resolving a problem, especially in the STEM domain.