The paper briefly discusses pedagogical methods for incorporating computer aided design and manufacture into higher education engineering based on surveying two universities: Federal University of ABC, Brazil and Riga Technical University, Latvia. It seeks to identify strengths and weaknesses in contemporary teaching practices; highlighting innovative methods that nurture design problem solving, technical competence, exploration of new materials and dynamic form generation. The researches concern possible teaching strategies for instructing students in the use of Computer Aided Design (CAD), through software such as Dassault Systemes Solidworks, Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Autocad and Open source Freecad. Alongside modes of teaching Computer Aided Manufacture (CAM) including additive technologies such as 3D Printing, alongside digital photo-etching and movie-making. It is relevant to mention that the selected students had no previous experience in technical drawing neither with computer aided design.