  Often neglected in traditional education, spatial thinking has played a
critical role in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)
education. Spatial thinking skills can be enhanced by training, life
experience, and practice. One approach to train these skills is through 3D
modeling (also known as Computer-Aided Design or CAD). Although 3D modeling
tools have shown promising results in training and enhancing spatial thinking
skills in undergraduate engineering students when it comes to novices,
especially middle and high-school students, they are not sufficient to provide
rich 3D experience since the 3D models created in CAD are isolated the actual
3D physical world. Resulting in novice students finding it difficult to create
error-free 3D models that would 3D print successfully. This leads to student
frustration where students are not motivated to create 3D models themselves;
instead, they prefer to download them from online repositories. To address this
problem, researchers are focusing on integrating 3D models and displays into
the physical world with the help of technologies like Augmented Reality (AR).
In this demo, we present an AR application, 3DARVisualizer, that helps us
explore the role of AR as a 3D model debugger, including enhancing 3D modeling
abilities and spatial thinking skills of middle- and high-school students.
