Tech Directions - March 2008 - (Page 22)

Humanity houses every year, and when the local Habitat needed a combination office space and storage facility, they came to us. Industry contacts tell me that being able to work in a group is very important, so I always include some group problem solving. For the Habitat project, I divided my first-year students into “apprentice” groups with my A students acting as project managers. Each team had to come up with 20 questions about the heard a lot of “Are the checks here yet?” Those checks really got shown around in the hallway. One of the company’s engineers came by to see how we were doing and noticed that we drew in 3D before going to 2D for the dimensioned prints. He was impressed and started sending over actual seats to measure and draw. Then he sent all the different foam inserts for the backs and bottoms of the seats. The students dissected the foam into Student at computer drawing for outside client project to e-mail to the Habitat coordinator. She then came to my class to answer the questions in person. Soon after, there was a ground breaking, covered by the local TV station and newspaper and attended by the Habitat board, the school superintendent, my supervisor, my students who could make it, and me. Entrepreneurship I try to find as many ways as possible to put the “career” in career tech. For example, I was freelance drafting a few summers ago for a local company that makes school bus seats with integrated seatbelts and shoulder harnesses. The company had to come up with a way to get a number of their stock 2D prints into CAD and came to me for help. My advanced students were given an opportunity to make the company’s drawings in the CAD room and get paid while going to school. Win-win. I kept track of their hours and sent the company a bill every week along with the CAD drawings. I individual pieces, drew and dimensioned each piece, and made 3D assemblies for them. Having completed all of their seat foam drawings, we needed more to do. (Funny how quickly the students became addicted to this working-forpay arrangement.) The company gave us a drawing of their driver’s seat, along with the actual unpainted seat mechanism. It was a prototype, so we couldn’t take it apart to draw it. Not only did the students manage to draw and dimension each of the parts, we sent them an assembly in 3D with motion. We really got their attention with that one! The engineer returned wanting to hire one of my students as a co-op and pay him even more to drive to the factory site. One of the senior students created a very unusual screwdriver handle that looked like a robotic hand. He was hired and went to work the next week. He went full time after graduation with another raise in pay. He recently sent me an e-mail with an attached photo of his new car. Not wanting to miss the PR aspect of this project, I got the TV station to do another story on this student’s success. Then, Phil, a full-time inventor, found us, having learned about our drawing and 3D prototype capabilities from one of the newspaper articles. He had an invention looking for financial backing and needed a prototype model to show potential investors. I assigned my best student, Brent, to Phil, who came by the classroom at least once a week. Brent got paid for his work and my program got paid for the prototypes. We made all of the parts on the 3D machine, keeping at it until Phil was satisfied. Brent was later hired by Phil and Ohio State University for full-time summer work on a new invention. Since then, other inventors have found us. Our latest venture is with an Internet-based service that links manufacturing customers with suppliers. They send out RFQs (request for quotes) for rapid prototypes. Our first successful bid was with a company in the Czech Republic. After some translation issues and tricky payment hurdles, we made them happy with a two-part, handheld breathalyzer unit. The RFQ service uses a rating system, like eBay, with feedback. With this being our first job out of the U.S., we wanted to make a good impression and we did. There aren’t many rapid prototype jobs posted on the RFQ service yet, but we win most of the ones we qualify for because of no overhead and a price no one can beat. Some of the jobs are too big for the machine and can’t be changed. But if they fit in the machine, we bid on them. Final Thoughts I hope this article has given you ideas you can use to make your program more successful. I work to make my class as relevant and interesting as possible and wanted to share my ideas in the hope that they can help other career and technical educators. In the words of that great North American philosopher Red Green, “I’m pulling for you, we’re all in this together.” 22 techdirections ◆ MARCH 2008

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Tech Directions - March 2008 Technically Speaking Contents Direct from Washington The News Report Technology’s Past Technology Today Mastering Computers HDTV—Understanding the New, Dealing with the Old Technical Studies Lead to Dream Career Fill and Fund Your CAD Classroom with These Exciting Strategies STEM Progress in Katrina’s Wake School Web Site of the Month Spring Spotlight More than Fun

Tech Directions - March 2008

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