To end the year, my students have been making simple marking gauges. My students learned to create a mortise and use hand planes to fit a tenon in this particular project.
Here’s how we did it.
1. Cut a 1″ or 3/4″ square oak strip into 8″ lengths.
2. Cut a 2″ length from a maple strip about 2″ wide, giving you a 2″ x 2″ square.
3. Use the oak strip to mark your mortise in the center of the maple square. We did this by marking two diagonals across the maple square and then eye-balling the center. Mark the square with a mechanical pencils. If you feel really competent, use a try square to wrap the edges of the mortise around to the back side of the maple square.
4. Drill a pilot hole through the center of the mortise (in the waste section).
5. Use a coping saw with the blade threaded through your pilot hole to cut out the mortise.
6. Clean up the mortise with a sharp woodworking chisel.
8. Fit the tenon to the mortise – use a plane to trim the tenon enough to slide with some resistance.
7. Drill hole for the thumbsrew with a 7/16″ twist bit. Move the drill in a circular motion, widening the hole slightly.
8. Hand tighten the thumbscrew into the tenon.
9. Use a nail to drill a pilot hole through one end of the tenon.
10. Hammer a nail into the pilot hole. Clip the nail short.
11. Use a file to shape the pin into a blade shape. Do this by filing one side flat (the side towards your fence) and angling a mill file to make a spear point pin.
My school spends a lot of time, energy and financial resources on project-based learning. In my experience, teachers use project-based learning as a catch-all term for anything from make-it-take-it projects which last twenty minutes to inquiry-driven, rubric-graded, long-term explorations. Calling the former project-based learning is lazy and misdirection. Creating incredible experiences for students with the latter definition is exhausting and rewarding. Most of the time, a teacher must follow a middle course. This is one of those projects.
We started off by designing and building pantographs. If you don’t know anything about pantographs – check out the video below. Also check out http://www.peter.com.au/articles/pantograph.html for instructions on how to build a professional-quality pantograph. This site contains a java applet which allows students to digitally explore a pantograph’s mechanics before use. I’ve included a Sketch Up model in my section of the 3D Warehouse.
Afterwards, my student’s worked through a number of percentage problems based on their pantograph’s working results. I don’t include a lot of variety in the type of problems, but you can modify the problem sets to reflect your curriculum needs. If this series of projects interest you, feel free to use them in your own classroom.
Make it safe & keep the rubberside down this week.
Applied Math Made Easy, a hands-on, application-heavy curriculum designed by a pair of teachers from Wisconsin, has a number of great math labs and activities. Using worksheets to convey directions and learning, the curriculum utilizes a conversationalist tone and “interactive reading” (their term, not mine) to let students learn middle school to high school level mathematics – about a 9th to 10th grade range. I’ve co-taught with teachers who’ve used this curriculum and I can say this: it works. Incredibly well, when your students can read, understand and follow instructions at a high school level.
I don’t teach those kids.
So here’s what I do: I take a look at the lab and find a focal point. For example, reading rulers. The act of reading a ruler supports numerous mathematical standards and the act of building a ruler provides a concrete experience for the student. In this activity, students use 3/8″ lengths of pine to create thick “rulers” – they split the ruler into sixteenths using string. They can then label each division they make – so along the way, the see how a whole can be split into parts and further into more parts. Number sense, division, and differentiated learning all in one. I had some successes, and some near successes.
A near miss. This student can split his work into eights, but loses his way splitting things into sixteenths. In context of his neurological differences, this is consistent with his mathematical competency – somewhere between third and fifth grade.
After building these rulers, we built picture frames. Again, an exercise in measurement and utilizing fractions. In between the ruler project and these frames, my students spent a lot of time manipulating common fractions – into decimals, adding fractions with like denominators, measurement and more measurement, both in real world situations and abstract number problems. Eventually, we built these pieces.
My guys improved tremendously. All read their rulers correctly, to the eighth. They were less successful with their calculations, getting about 1/2 to 3/4 of the problems correct. Way better than their 12.5% to 25% they answered correctly in the pre-unit activities. Next project: the try square for our interactive display at Houston’s Mini Maker Faire.
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Make it safe & keep the rubberside down this weekend. In the shop, I have a new apprentice – my youngest brother-in-law is spending his holiday break building frames with me. Seems you can take the woodshop away from the teacher, but you can’t move the teacher from the woodshop.
My new “little” project obsession: try squares. These guys mark boards square. That’s it. All they do. The try, not tri, comes from the act of “trying” an angle to see if it’s square, not three, or tri.
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This slideshow punctuated by a few of my favorite song titles, puns and lyrics in no particular order.
These tools come together quite easily. First, I rip a 2×4 into 1/4″ or 3/8″ inch thick strips. Then I flatten one side of the strip using a hand plane. After checking each strip for flatness, I rip the piece again on my table saw, creating 1″ wide strips. A few flicks of the wrist (on the table saw or at the miter-box, depending on my location) and the pieces become square. Glue three strips together, leaving a space for the blade. Once the stock dries, I attach the blade using a thick, square speed square as my reference. Clamp that up for an hour and the tool only awaits embellishment.
I’ll be giving these away at TX/RX Labs at my woodworking class. Visit (class is FILLED!) on Dec. 1 and see if you can get one!
Computers don’t actually make a Maker classroom, computer access does. In the past to years, I’ve developed an instinct, capability and ability to integrate the technology into our science and math-based classroom activities. Not every project needs computer (for example, the spirograph build) but many projects can be enhanced with its use. My students use a computer almost everyday; researching the day’s project, finding working examples and interactive demonstrations online or better yet, actively engaging with their small corner of the online world. A Maker’s classroom without computers can still work, but becomes harder to facilitate.
9. Alice Programming Environment
Currently in beta, developed in part by Randy Pausch and sponsered by Electronic Arts, the Alice Programming Environment provides a free, useful sandbox for students to learn the basics of computer programming. No, its not a powerful, high-level language like Python, nor does it have many applications outside of a the program itself (like say, Arduino’s sketchpad) but students learn logical thinking, loops, conditional structures and the like. This high-level of abstract thinking immediately transfers to other areas of life. My students often have to use conditional structures when planning a get-together (if I invite John and he doesn’t like Stacy then I can invite one OR the other) or completing multi-step, sequential projects (finish step 1, move on to step 2, check during step 3, go back to step 1). This type of abstract thinking comes naturally with age and cognitive development. When you teach a population challenged by exectutive functions like I do, any tool which allows students to practice these skills in an explicit way gets on my personal top ten.
8. Google Sketch Up
If you are looking for the most bang for your buck, find a way to incorporate Google Sketch Up in your room. I use GSU8 as a baithook, as a reward for strong academic performance, as a product creator, a academic break activity, as a curriculum enhancer, as the “cool” homework, as “can you believe this, parent? Look how competent your child is!”-bragging rights maker. I bait the kid with computer time and hook’m into learning geometry concepts, I reward twenty mulitplication problems with five minutes of worktime. My students create castles and learn spatial skills placing firing arcs from the catapults. My students create designs for headphone holders and houses and Borgian libraries. My students thrown tantrums and ten minutes designing furniture calms them down. My students turn in homework when I say the fateful words, “build it on Sketch Up”. My parents shake their heads in disbelief and new wonder. Familiarity with a program like GSU translates to coursework in college, into certificates in industry, into a career.
Perimeter/Area/Polygon Exercise in Google Sketch Up
Bang for your buck.
7. The support of community experts
Despite what my students may think about me, I don’t know everything. But I know a lot of people who do, and if I don’t, I know people who know a guy. Community experts mean I can do more with less and I can do more than I know how to do. I just have to ask and listen. I just become a facilitator, rather than a traditional teacher, for my own kiddos. I get the opportunity to occupy a different, more equitable and just as powerful space. My classroom thrives.
For those in Houston, look out for my Community Watch tag. I try to give credit when credit is due.
6. The woodworking tool box
Last summer, I started working on this toolbox. It holds various hammers, chisels, squares, sliding bevels, saws, tools and supplies for four to six students to build nearly anything with wood. This box contains magic. Absolute magic. If I can’t make it with the contents of this box…
…then it is beyond the scope my middle school curriculum.
5. A blog
Once a student is done listening to a lecture, performing an experiment, finding a solution and wrestling with a problem the student must process their new-found knowledge. Communication – whether short answer on a test, long essay on a bulletin board or oral presentation – provides the best opportunity for a teacher to evaluate their student’s learning progress. Student-centered blogs provide a quicker turnaround, leverage a student’s love of technology, allow practice zones for literacy skills, support multimedia integration and boost parental engagement all at the same time. The Math/Sci program produced roughly 80 posts this year. Some 2000 page views. We had twenty students contribute to these articles. That’s four essays on math/science learning per child. I teach science…but my kids can write. That’s a whole lotta communication.
4. A team of expert, engaged, bad-mamma-jamma professional educators
In the words of Arlo Guthrie – “One man singing a bar of Alice’s Resturant, then that man’s crazy. Three men singing it…that’s a movement”. Teaching is an art, a craft and a sweet science. Artist need muses, craftsmen need tools, sweat and wood. And boxers need to be knocked around a little to “season them”. If you do this alone, you burn out. You do this with a crew of people you can rely on, you change the world.
And I’ve gotta helluva movement marching with me.
3. Eyes and Ears
I carry a camera with me at all times. The camera records my students’ smile, my students’ learning, my students’ simple moments of success. If I don’t record it, I don’t share it, I don’t put it in my students hands and say “Remember this. This is important,” then it didn’t happen. The camera preserves my students’ success.
My colleagues use the discontinued Flip cameras to record video. We edit the video in MovieMaker and move it over to a YouTube channel. Other teachers can see our work, parents can look over our shoulder, the boss-upstairs can say “this is what our teachers do.” My eyes and ears give context and visual ooomph to any project I can develop.
2. WD-40, Hot Glue, Vice Grips & Duct Tape
Use them in this order. Always works.
1. A school which provides the space, curriculum and materials for exploration
My plea for you – especially if you are not already engaged in education – is to find a school which promotes Maker values and Maker projects and support those programs the best you can. Lend your expertise, donate used tools, put your dollars and voice behind hands-on education. Individual teachers, like myself, can only do so much inside a classroom. We need support on the streets, on our speed-dial and in the hearts of our parents. Hands-on, project-based, maker-centric education works and we need your help to get it to the next level. Keep talking, making and setting things on fire until our principals, superintendents and school boards sit up and take notice.
Make it safe & keep the rubber side down this weekend.
If I haven’t made clear prior to this post, I have space issues at work. I hold wood-shop classes in the great outdoors, rain or shine (ok, just shine), cold or hot. Morning and afternoon. I’ve been looking for a storage solution for the many “wood-centric” tools that end up in the outdoor space but away from the our tool storage trailer.
My solution looks something like this:
It’s not a pretty thing, but the design has a long gestation. Chris Schwarz has been promoting his conversion to hand tools for years now – and he finally documents the slow spiral in “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest”. He’s got a book, I guess I have this blog. Either way, I decided on a 24″ by 18″ by 18″ dovetailed box. The moldings and bottoms were nailed and glued on, while the top has a split piano hinge as it’s method of movement. Most of the dovetails and dadoes are splined for strength (because I can’t cut a tight dovetail) and I used a L-N low angle block plan to get the pins and tails even. I only used power tools for milling the wood.
Let’s take a trip inside. First, a tool tray with a small selection of hammers, nail sets, wrenches, etc.
A chisel/gouge/trisquare rack,
a saw till,
and some places for hand plane storage.
Over the next few weeks, I will be attaching handles, finding some storage solution for safety glasses, paint & varnish and carrying handles. I’ll keep you posted.
In preparation for a walkin’ cane project, I built a dirty looking 2×4 shaving horse. It ain’t named Trigger, though I might name it Jimmy Stewart. Whenever I think of the description “long face”, I think of Jimmy Stewart.
