Maker Eduation – Page 4

This Week in the Shop: Refurbish A Children’s Bike

The 16″ childrens’ bike project has cleared my outbox. I’m busy in reflection mode with the students, examining all the different parts of our work for ways to improve the product, teaching and quality next time. I thought the bike itself came out well: If you’ve followed the blog over the past two months, thenContinue reading “This Week in the Shop: Refurbish A Children’s Bike”

This Week In the Classroom: Quadracycle In Progress & DIY Wood Bongo Drums

It’s that time of week again – I’ve had some personal living arrangements wetness and have been living out of a dufflebag and a smile. Reminds me of college, but at that time I didn’t have two in diapers… At the home workshop, I’ve been banging away. So, in one project, my segmented tube experimentsContinue reading “This Week In the Classroom: Quadracycle In Progress & DIY Wood Bongo Drums”

This Week In the Classroom: New Tools and Old Tools In the Shop (It’s Not What You Think)

Just got the best new, free tool in the woodshop today. It looks like this: It’s a printed out (thank god the paper-waster nazi wasn’t around) version of the ENTIRE trilogy of Mission Furniture and How to Make It published by Project Gutenberg via Popular Mechanics from 1910. The students flip through it and findContinue reading “This Week In the Classroom: New Tools and Old Tools In the Shop (It’s Not What You Think)”

This Week In the Classroom: Progress in 2011

What a student-driven, project-based learning can result in: The joints look remarkably tight in this photo, and the stain quite even, but don’t be fooled. This is about as rough as work gets. (Not including the Clock, which may be finished and rejected this week…) It was the first attempt at an entire project likeContinue reading “This Week In the Classroom: Progress in 2011”

This Week In the Classroom: Curriculum Plan for Spring of 2011

Good week for struggles and not-quite-there-yets in the woodshop this week. Three projects left the floor complete. The first, chalkboard that has been wind-blown, vandalized and otherwise destroyed three times. We’ll see if it sticks this time. The other two projects I failed to take a picture of. On Mon or Tues, I’ll put upContinue reading “This Week In the Classroom: Curriculum Plan for Spring of 2011”

Community Watch: Pine Wood Derby Clinics

Saw this during half-time in last week’s Jets-Colts game over at http://www.coptool.com. It seems Lowe’s and Dremel will be sponsoring clinics on how to make Pinewood Derby cars. I may have to take a spin by and see if I can snag a few kits. Might have a week-long science lab project there. I shouldContinue reading “Community Watch: Pine Wood Derby Clinics”

This Week in the Classroom: Squiggle ‘Bots

Here’s a line on what pre-school should be – I actually thought I invented this project a few years ago when I worked with primary school-age kids in VA. Obviously, I did not – it’s just rumblin’ around out there in the knowledge sphere. Teacher Tom goes into some of the skills those little guysContinue reading “This Week in the Classroom: Squiggle ‘Bots”

This Week in the Classroom: Mobile Base (The Volleyball Court)

Two weeks ago, my colleague and I had an interesting revelation. While installing a basketball hoop, we had extra cement. I had a shovel-ready stimulus bill waiting for him. It looked something like this: Which looks exactly like it is (brilliant statement there). It’s a empty tire (the rims lost to another project) with aContinue reading “This Week in the Classroom: Mobile Base (The Volleyball Court)”