Richards SolidWorks Blog

High Tech and Hands On

  High Tech and Hands On

By Richard Williams aka Corporal Willy

     Education today doesn’t have to be dull, boring, monotonous, unchallenging and just a mental holiday for our students.  It can be a time for inspiration, perspiration and ambitious projects that are done right there in the classroom.  I’ve seen both extremes in education in a few states now and I have to say that for those youngsters fortunate enough to be in a class full of hands on and challenging projects learn better.  Dry studies in the classroom without some wetness to put into motion those things that are being learned will not have the reinforcement of learning the subject matter well.  It’s kind of like a dry barren desert without much vegetation. 

    I have to point out something that might not want to be talked about, but the momentum for educational change is right on the horizon today.  Students live in the world of 2010.  We have been on the moon already and we have plans being worked on to colonize are closest livable sister planet Mars.  Are we going to prepare our students properly and use modern methods to do it with?  I sure hope so.

     Dateline:  Las Vegas Convention Center December 2^nd and 3^rd. The ACTE Career Tech Expo.   http://www.careertechexpo.com 

 
After finding a parking place way in the back of just one of the huge parking lots you get a feeling of being very small after walking through the doors.  It is huge inside and that is not even a good enough descriptor of what I mean.  There is ample room for even the biggest of shows.  I am not writing this to promote the Convention Center, but to let you know that with so many High Tech Education Companies out there, they were able to bring in and set up some very elaborate displays. 

 

 

 

 

Yes that is a youngster learning how to weld on a virtual welding machine.  Incredible don’t you think so and there is no potential hazard of getting burned or having to set up a real shop for welding operations.  A real shop should be done to get the full effect of learning how to weld but believe me this is cool to get the feel and preliminary experience needed.  Check it out at:

                                             http://www.lincolnelectric.com/green

We all know that Robotics seems to be sweeping the tech education today and this was just one elaborate display of what some schools are using to teach those youngsters that will be creating those amazing machines in the future. 

High Tech and Hands On is an educational method that just cannot be beat in my opinion.  If this was available back when I was in school, I most likely would still be in school still trying to figure these things out.  Try going to:   http://www.amatrol.com

Not all Educational Aids were just in hardware alone.  I found the Dassault Systèmes; SolidWorks Company and MasterCAM also there demonstrating ways of teaching our young future work force how to design and then build it.  Down below here is Christine Morse from the SolidWorks Company; Public Relations.

 
 

Another lady from the SolidWorks Company is Mrs. Marie Planchard talking to an interested passerby.  These two ladies mentioned in these last two pictures are instrumental to getting a wonderful program into the hands of children to learn.  It is a real engineering tool.  Mrs. Planchard is the Director of Worldwide Education Markets for SolidWorks.  She is also an engineer and a former School Teacher.

You know as well as I do that the education of our young people takes a very special kind of person that we call a TEACHER.  I did not really understand this until I was out of high school a couple of years and I think it came to me one night when I was in a foxhole someplace on a very lonely  watch, that teachers were indeed very special. 

But with hands on projects like this one being done down below at one of our six high school academies, young people get involved in their education like you would not believe.  The teacher of this class Mr. Angelo Pappano, told me that he starts the class and supervises things, but at a distance.  The youngsters have a yearning to learn and even study on their own at home.  Isn’t that odd to hear about today?  They take the initiative and run with the ball to the graduation gold posts.  I want to congratulate the students for their accomplishments and Mr. Pappano the teacher / engineer that motivated these young people to this level of competence.  Here is my sincerest congratulations for a job well done! 

No, they aren’t toilet seats and they will be for sale I am told.  They also aren’t the Taylor acoustical guitars, but they are a very prominent part of any modern band today; the electronic guitar.

 

Now while we are at it, I want to proudly show you something that I was not only amazed to see myself but something that I really want to boast about (some of the kids who are artists in this school district).  We all know everyone is not going to be a Scientist, a Technologist, an Engineer or a Mathematician and we sure need a lot of youngsters that are gifted with talents to do that.  They will do very well in life because they can do what many of us wish we could. 

Then we have those that are gifted in other ways to be graphic artists and they will have careers in many different industries because they can make ideas come to life.  Walt Disney would be proud of them and so am I.  Let’s give them all the tools they need to keep us entertained and remember this is Las Vegas, Nevada, where shows come to life everyday of the year to entertain the world that comes here. 

Here we have Miss Victoria Pecor working on painting another one of her characters that she has developed.  Victoria is using a Wacom Cintiq Monitor along with Corel Painter which allows the student the ability to paint directly on the screen.

Miss Sarah Darasouk is working on a painting using a Cintiq Monitor.  She is using the clone option in Corel Painter for the activity she is working on.  What fantastic young artists.

 

 

Since getting involved here in my school district and giving up my retirement in the process, I have seen room for improvement in some schools and at the same time I have seen so much improvement in many others that I cannot imagine what else can be done.  Yes I know I am bragging, but I have the children to brag about and the teachers deserve so much of that credit for bringing out their talents.    

Sometimes when I reflect upon how busy I am during this time in my life, I get satisfaction from knowing that there are many more that fight to get different technologies into our classrooms much harder than I do.  One of them is Mr. David McElwain, our Clark County School District Technology Director.  Because of what he and others do we have some great success stories to tell here.  The teachers also deserve a lot of the credit because they train themselves in these new technologies in order to teach students and just look at what they can do.

Here we have Mr. Tyler Horne (Graphic Design II Student, Concept Art and Character development for his Video Game Character SYLAAR.  His concept was created in 3dsMax by a 3D Animation student in another class and printed on a Dimension printer) and Maureen Clark (instructor: Foothill High School)

 

Using Rapid Prototyping technologies these results were obtained from the creations of artists like young Mr. Tyler and we have a bunch of them here.  This is teaching and learning at its very best levels.  It deserves our full support no matter what school district we are talking about.   The 3D Models of characters were developed by various students in the Computer Graphics and Animation classes at Foothill High School using a 3D Dimensions Printer.

 

This is Tyler Horne's SYLAAR and Miss Victoria Pecor's  SARAH Concept Boards for Character Development.  It is amazing to see what was once done in college or industy come down into the high school level.

 

Artistic creativity comes in all kinds of styles.  Yes these young men did these creative works of art and I for one think they are very professionally done.  Had I not been told they did them I would have thought it was done by professionals. 

These Promotional Banners were made to promote the CTE course at our school.  Designed, printed and assembled by our Graphics Design II students.  The students took their own photos of students in the various programs and used Adobe Photoshop to develop their design.  

The three young artists that made the Promotional Banners used to promote the various CTE courses offered at the Foothills high school are from left to right Johan Ramerez, Michael Kim, and “Jyrone”  Aguinaldo Baraoidan.  Really nice art work young men.

A well run machine with regions set up and overseen by people like Mr. Jason Cloyd, the Western Regional Manager, of Americas Education.  He is dedicated to the users of the SolidWorks program in the schools.

 

Here Mr. Chris Miller from the Paton Group; Operations and he is talking to Mr. Steve Rebensdorf of dimension / Stratasys.  Now I know that even our young graphic artists use the 3D Printers to build their prototypes; from their creative minds to real physical objects.

Most of what moves today does so with gears and linkages.  Down below we have Mr. Roger Perry (left side) and Mr. Mark Newby in front of their companies educational display.  http://www.gearseds.com  take a look at their animations page as it is very nicely done and could be very useful in as added information for a classroom setting:     http://www.gearseds.com/flash_lessons.html

 

I was introduced to the CEO of the Inspirtech Company, Mr. Al Whatmough, who makes video tutorials for the SolidWorks MCAD program.  Yes, he brought his father Niel along too.

 

Robotics was well represented there at the show.  It can really grab the attention of young people everywhere and educational success stories are many.   Take a closer look at:  http://www.fanucrobotics.com    Some really amazing technologies for classroom labs.  Want to go back to school?

CNC machining is always a popular item at these shows.  I tried cutting out gears with a scroll saw once and made such a mess out of it that it was embarrassing.  Now students learn how to setup a part for machine operations such as the cutting out of gears and they can be proud of their results.  I hid mine.   Here Mr. Simon Moorhouse walked me through some operations.   http://www.denford.co.uk   I wish I had one of these to make my gears.

 

Not to be playing second fiddle to other categories at the show, the Green technologies were well represented here by others and by the Progressive Educational Systems with all their various displays.  Shown were Wind and Photovoltaic Energy Systems.  Down below here we have the husband and wife team of Mr. and Mrs. Paul and Katie Riddell.

 

What a wonderful Career Tech Expo it was this year.  Many people made a lot of contacts and gathered a lot of information into their tote bags.  I’m still sorting through mine.  In fact I am looking forward to going the next time they are here.  Great dedicated people + great exhibits and demonstrations = a terrific show.  See and some people said I couldn’t do any kind of math.  This is Corporal Willy asking you to get involved in your schools.  Work to make them better.  Work to make students better.  Is there anything more important than our young people who will replace us?  Happy Holidays to Everyone, Everywhere.   

Cardboard or Fiberboard in our Schools

Cardboard Construction Destructive Testing 

By Corporal Willy, February 23^rd 2010

   One of the volunteer jobs that I do while being retired is to write for http://www.engineering.com   My articles report on the various items I find that might be interesting to technologists, engineers, scientists and physicists worldwide.  These articles should also be of interest to teachers all over the world, because I do include science projects now and then that can be used for classroom projects and school science events.  Today I started a special project in our schools in Las Vegas and hopefully it will be adopted everywhere in the world.  The use of cardboard or fiberboard as it is sometimes called can be used to build small construction projects and then used in “destructive testing.”  This is nothing new and many teachers have already been using this material in school science projects for many years.  What is different here is that I want the young students to perform destructive testing on what they build to help generate that data that is missing at this time.  Using their own imaginations and configurations they can utilize those ideas to test for strength in their designs.  This morning I went to a school to witness the testing of a cardboard project that I built awhile ago and that students would perform the destructive testing on.  These high school students were very professional at doing this test and cooperated fully with each other to get the job done.  Along with this article posting there will be a short 2 minute video included so you can see the actual event that took place.  We are all interested in what our children are learning and doing in school.  There is a great deal of interest out there when I write articles on this topic so I hope that Cardboard Constructions will catch on with schools everywhere that teach designing or pre-engineering courses.  I will gladly accept everything sent to me about similar projects done in schools anywhere and I will write about it or accept the teachers write up with the verification of the results.  It will then be posted to the engineering.com web site where it will be viewed and enjoyed by engineers, scientists, physicists, designers and teachers all over the world.  Note: (A delay between the actual testing date and the posting date had to occur in order to allow time for student picture release forms to be signed and put on file before publishing this article)

 

 

First off, I would like to show a picture of this great school.  The name comes from the fact that it is close to a mountain range and is located in the foothill region or base of it.

 

 

  

Down below here is the test subject.  I beams that are 1 inch thick in global size and ten inches long will be the main supports in this simple structure.  The whole project was glued to the cardboard base to provide a non-movable support that the model could be tested on.  Elmer’s Wood Glue was used as the fastening method.  The model is missing four other cross braces that I failed to get done on time before delivering it to the school class.

  
 

A project test briefing was conducted by Ms. Rogers, before hand and various tasks were assigned to expedite things.  Our young men in the class were sent to the workout gym to get some different sized weights to use in this static testing.  Everyone had a task to do.  Some were designated as observers to study the columns to let us know when anything started to deform or break.  Cameras were used by the students to record everything from different angles.

 

 Some final details were worked out and now testing can be started.  Students were asked what they thought the Cardboard Construction would be able to hold before the project would fail.  A wide span of guesses were made that were not too much different from those engineers in the world that I polled before the test.  I thought that was pretty important and funny at the same time.

 

 

We started by placing one 45 lb weight directly centered on the top surface.  Without bouncing any weight upon the one already placed there a second 45 lb weight was added.  You can now notice a slight deforming of the one I beam on the left hand side as you look down its length.

 

Young eyes are glued on the project test subject and some students are taking pictures from various angles.  Right now we see 140 lbs of weight piled up on this very simple construction.  It is simply amazing that it can resist falling down now with that kind of a static stress test placed upon it.  Deformation was definitely seen but it is still standing up to the weight placed on top of it.

 

Here is a close in look with a minute gone by already and still holding.  Eyes are looking for indications of eminent destruction that will take place.  A really great learning experience is being taught here.  Some of these young students will be doing similar things like this in their future careers.

 

Some students spotted deformation of the cross bracing, top surfaces and I beams meant to span across the bottom surface of the top flat section.  Yet it is standing up well beyond my own expectations of only 100 lbs.

 

This simple cardboard construction finally gave out at 150 lbs or 68.03 Kilograms or 1,800 Taels (Chinese) which is truly remarkable.

 

This is or was only a simple cardboard structure weighing less than one pound.  Importantly the results that the students got from doing this destructive testing will be recorded and historically archived with all the data and pictures.  Would there be any schools out there that could get any better results with the same type of design, size and materials?  I really wonder about that don’t you?

 

Destroyed yes, but much information was gathered here along with the dramatic results.  I know I learned a lot from witnessing this test done by our students.  One big thing that I learned here is that if you challenge youngsters to accomplish an important task they will not let you down.  Ms. Rogers knows her class of students well and they did perform just like she knew they would.  You all did a great job on this testing here.

 

It was kind of sad to see my project flattened like this, but it was only a sacrifice of my time and a little glue.  Kind of resembles the look of a modern art thing, but I wanted a few final pictures of it to share with all of you out there and for me to remember it by.

 

 I included some more screen shots from the video I made of this test down below here for you.  Take a look at the actual video footage here:   http://www.engineering.com/  look for Corporal Willy Ariticles from the top right blog tab.   Most of the time I use red banners for my titles.    

 
  

Awards for this class project were hats and tee shirts sent by the SolidWorks Corporation headquartered in Boston.  I wanted to make sure that we thanked them properly here and also the parent company, Dassault Systemes that is located in France.  Thank you both for making this class project successful and rewarding for the students.  We all learned a lot from doing this so we will now move on to bigger and even better construction projects. 

 
 
 

Here is the face of a happy teacher who had a very high level of participation and interest in her classroom today.  Thank you Ms. Rogers for allowing your students to do this destructive testing that will be recorded and archived at engineering.com with your school, your students and your leadership behind it.

 

Once again I want to say thank you and well done to this class.  Your interest in doing this along with the class pictures and video will be online for the world to see and enjoy.

 
 
 

I really think the class enjoyed themselves today.  I know I did.  It would be nice to see some other similar projects like this from our other schools and from around the world too.  There is a lot of talent out there from students in every country and the adult world would like to see what they can do.  Maybe we could have some friendly competitions of various types of structures all made from this wonderful cheap material called cardboard or fiberboard.  Bye and take care.

Richard Williams

rwilliams@engineering.com

 

 

 

A Challenge to Learn & Think

 Calling All Students, Teachers, Engineers and Interested People in Education.

By Corporal Willy, Jan. 25, 2010

     It is a well known idea or trick to use during a presentation to do something spectacular to capture the attention of those that will be listening to you.  Start with a great opening and keep it going.  Well this is kind of hard to do in an article post on a blog site but here goes nothing.

     America is not the only country that needs to inspire young people to become engineers.  It was considered to be a very “un cool” thing or at least it was in the past.  Taken from this month’s Control Design Magazine were these statistics, 14% of youngsters don’t want to do any kind of physical work and 61% of them want to be CEO’s.  With the enormous bonuses being paid out today that is no small wonder.  Many educators are working to improve this image and I work behind the scenes to help them with ideas to make studying more interesting, challenging and deeper.  I’ve come up with an idea that is not really new or tremendously different, but one that I think can bring about more intensified interests into technology fields with students.  Look down below here at these screen shots.  The whole idea here is to guess how much weight this small structure will hold.

 

 

 

That is about 30 lbs of weight on it already but it isn’t there for testing purposes but to insure a good contact on all surfaces for the glue to dry.

 

Take a look at the finished structure down below that I will be taking to the Foothills High School tomorrow.  One of their teachers has agreed to let students do the destructive testing on it.  I’m going on record now in advance of that testing to say that I think it will hold close to 100 lbs or 45.3592 Kilograms weight for a minute.  Please continue to read and look at the pictures down below here. 

    Seemingly this fiber board or corrugated cardboard composite is a universal type of packaging material that is made in various strengths and configurations.  It is also a very closely guarded secret as to the physical properties of this composite material after it is made into various configurations.  Standards both national and international must be met for the proper adoption for its use, but still the industry is close mouthed as to the individual physical properties of this stuff. 

 

    My plan here is to involve many schools around the world in the testing of various types of configurations so that data can be generated in any standard measurement system using guidelines from a select committee.  This will show some sort of pattern as to the strength of the materials, shapes and sizes when made into different types of structures.  I will publish all results so that it can be studied for use in school projects.  It can be used in teacher led learning assignments and that meaningful engineering data can be obtained while doing it. 

 

Final screen shots are down below here of the test sample project that will be brought to school tomorrow.  I’m thinking that the four 1 inch square I beams (2.54 x 2.54 centimeters) will hold about 100 lbs of force in a downward or negative Y axis direction.  I have no data to back up this assumption for this material.  It is just my unscientific guess that it might withstand that amount of stress of 100 pounds or 45.3592 Kilograms.  This is exactly what Ms. Rogers’ high school class will determine by doing the independent testing for me.  Failure stresses will be presumed if anything breaks or distorts severely enough from the “at rest condition or equilibrium state.”  Elmer’s Wood Glue is my “wielding” material.

 

 

 

   Here is what I am proposing to all of you because I need your participation and help.  I would like to get schools all over the world to build projects like this one or even bigger and better ones, using standard methods and materials that will be proposed by a committee of people.  We can publish it all on this web site from all those schools that participate in projects along with plenty of pictures.  I already have the backing of Mr. Hayes the CEO of the engineering.com web site, the Dassault Systems SolidWorks Company and for now one high school by the name of Foothills High, in Las Vegas, Nevada.  If this is something you might like to participate in or to help set up the standards for testing to be done, please let me know.  I can be reached at rwilliams@engineering.com so I hope to hear from you.  Bye.

 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 

A Tremendous Find to Share Videos & Pictures.

Just suppose you need to share a tutorial you made or presentation, how would you do it?  Do you have a an expensive program that will allow you to do this?  How about one that sits right on your Desktop and can be used to capture and post to a free web site, or that you can email to anyone, anywhere at anytime and that is absolutely FREE.  Would you be interested in that tool?  Think of how you can demonstrat things to students.  Wow, all the possibilities.  Capture anything you see on your computers screen, video with sound track too and up to 5 minutes long.  A newsletter came in tonight and after downloading this very small program and trying it out, I was convinced.  Bye for now. Richard

Download Hey There, Hi There, Ho There, 4_2_09