School anchor desk

[mccoy178]

Hello,
Here is a little project my Woods II class and I are working on. We used Aspire to design it all. There are two females and two males and I working on this project. Both of the females are the ones running Aspire and the Shopbot. The boys are sanding and shaping everything.

More pics to follow. Also, something that made a huge difference in my shop was the addition of a 42" lcd t.v. to show the computer screen. It made a HUGE difference to my students and the number of kids who could use the machine proficiently tripled.

[oddcoach]

Very nice thanks for sharing

[dlcw]

Thanks for sharing Ben. It's great to see a vocational training environment passing along good work ethics and valuable experience to kids.

Keep up the great work and give a big congratulations to the students who worked on the project.

[hh_woodworking]

Great Job Ben! Are you using the 42" on the shopbot display? Or for the art work having a larger screen to use

[mccoy178]

Thanks for the compliments fellas! I'll pass them along.

Ed, currently it is used for both. I'll bring up Aspire to show quick fixes or easy VCarves and the toolpathing, then I let the Shopbot software show. I have a few old camcorders that I would like to use. I plan to mount one to the gantry so they could see up close cutting taking place.

For some reason, them having the ability to look up at the screen, see exactly what it's doing when zeroing, actually cutting, or manually moving around the cutter has made a dramatic difference in their comprehension skills. On their own they have memorized the steps and we always repeat each step along the way.

Want to know how I know I have them hooked? They'll sit and watch the machine just cut a pocket for 30 minutes without turning their heads. They used to call me crazy when I did that and now we have a crowd.

[hh_woodworking]

Ben PM sent

[michael_schwartz]

I wonder what the parents are going to think when the kids go home and ask for a Shopbot:D

Sounds like an excellent shop program. These kids are certainly learning skills they would not be exposed to elsewhere.

[myxpykalix]

Ben,
My two favorite classes in school was Woodshop and Metalshop. Even though the woodshop teacher was a total A**Hole what I remember most was learning on my own how to think about figuring out how to make something, or how to repair something and that I think was where i learned problem solving skills and many other things. So whether you know it or not, you are teaching those kids more then how to cut a piece of wood. Especially nowadys when computers and 3D is involved I think that helps keep thier interest. So keep up the good work...you get an A+ from me!:D

[mccoy178]

Figured I might as well show a couple pics of the finished product......

[hh_woodworking]

Ben ,
That turned out great!

[chiloquinruss]

It's one thing to teach students how to do something. It is quite another to give them pride in what they've learned!

They should all be very proud of their workmanship and design skills that they have learned. Equally proud should be the teacher of the skills!

Well done all. Russ

[mjindustry]

Ben McCoy has some of the luckiest students in Ohio! Lucky to have such a great technology teacher. The desk is beautiful!



Melissa J.