Tech Directions - January 2008 - (Page 15)

Engineering and Product Design Capstone Course Electrathon Vehicle Competition Draws It All Together By Lynn Gorman lynn@gorcomm.com N ATHAN Hale-Ray High School in East Haddam, CT, is a small four-year school with about 370 students. Conventional wisdom would indicate that not much could be done in the realm of technology education with the limited financial resources of its small rural community. But this school has proven otherwise. Bruce Freeman is a hands-on guy who teaches all of the school’s technology education classes. Fresh out of college 28 years ago, he worked as a carpenter for 20 years. Then he entered the graduate program at Lynn Gorman is a freelance writer, Gorman Communications, Watertown, CT. Central Connecticut State University to obtain teaching certification. That led eight years ago to his teaching assignment at the Nathan Hale-Ray High School. Today, all of Freeman’s classes are filled with students who are for the most part enthusiastic, hard working, and motivated. What’s more, in four of the past six years, his seniors have won the regional Electrathon Vehicle Competition, in which students race energy-efficient vehicles they have designed and manufactured themselves—not to see how fast they can go but how far they can be driven in an hour. Things Happen Fast In an Introduction to Manufacturing course, students receive an eyeopening overview of what modern manufacturing is all about. Many are surprised that it involves a lot more brain than brawn. Next, they get immersed in manufacturing themselves. Some sophomore and junior students entering the Introduction to Manufacturing class may have already Designing the freewheel adapter taken a computer-aided design (CAD) course, but most have not. Freeman doesn’t consider this a problem. He teaches the students CAD and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) simultaneously. Freeman’s classroom has 15 seats of Mastercam CAD/CAM software. The school holds maximum class size to 15, so each student has access to a computer and software for the entire class. The students are lead through a series of tasks in which they learn to draw and create manufacturing toolpaths for increasingly difficult 2D objects like shaped boards, engraved signs, picture frames, and so forth. Then, they learn to use fixtures and manufacture parts using one of the school’s three computer numerical control (CNC) routers. Students work with the routers two at a time. One student has already performed the assigned task and is available if needed to help the next student complete an assignment. This means that each student gets to perform or closely observe each task twice. Freeman said it only takes the students two weeks to achieve a solid working familiarity with Mastercam and the routers. Then they progress to more advanced manufacturing activities. As the semester progresses, the students learn more advanced drawing and manufacturing skills, including drilling, pocketing, and even creating more sculptured solids and surfaces. F www.techdirections.com TRANSPORTATION/CAD/CAM 15 http://www.techdirections.com

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Tech Directions - January 2008

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