It has been 4 years since we last competed in the Cardboard Canoe races, and while we had a very sturdy boat, it was almost too sturdy. It tipped over too easy because if floated so well and was not easy for our students to control. Those freshmen who built the canoe are now seniors and are working on a new boat for this years races. Our shop has 2 entrants a senior team and a junior team. It’s exciting to see their work, and to see how far our shop has come in providing our students with the tools to make these incredible objects. A few photos below of the construction process. The event is June 12th, and I will post more info as we approach the date.
Not sure why I have been so enamored with making bluetooth radios lately. My original Pi Radio still is not complete, but it’s a bit out of my hands at the moment. I purchased an old Rogers radio from England and converted it into a bluetooth radio, and it works very well. In addition to that I wanted to make my own radio using our lasercutter here in the shop and create everything in a CAD model. Today I was finalizing an updated version for my father, which includes a newly designed circuit board that is modeled in the CAD file. The new board adds a couple of diodes to help with interference from the battery pack, which was affecting the sound. I will post a more detailed writeup on the construction of the radio, but for now here are a few photos from today.
Wanted to showcase a few projects that are happening in the shop right now. The first is from one of our sophomores, Shubh P ’24, who took the design on on his LED Light Box to another level. Shubh has put a lot of attention to detail in his project from CAD to circuitry. He introduced several types of circuitry components to the design, which include potentiometers as dials, 7 segment display, and pushbutton switches. In addition, he utilized different sized wood in his CAD model to create patterns within the framework of the structure of the box. It really turned out well. Unfortunately, when taking photos of it today, there was a minor glitch in the coding, so he is going to fix the issue and I will post some more photos below.
In addition to the light box, Prince A ’23 is working on updating an older project from a previous student, a bluetooth speaker. The circuitry for the project is being modernized, as is the speaker box. Below you can see some test fitting of speakers in cardboard.
And lastly, Clark B ’23 and Daniel R ’22 are working on getting our traffic light fully functioning. Clark has been making circuit boards on our Bantam Tools mill and writing code to make the light work in unison with the school’s bell system. You can see his array of relays below in blue. Daniel has designed a connector to fit the traffic light on an old tv stand. We decided to print the connector out of a carbon fiber filament for strength, and after some trial and error, we are pretty happy with the final result. You can see it below in black.
A few times this week I’ve noticed in the morning that the lighting in my shop is behaving a bit strange. The system is a ‘smart’ lighting platform that recognizes movement within a room. It will automatically turn on the lights when movement is sensed, and then turn the lights out after a set time if no movement is sensed. Usually when I arrive at work the lights turn on automatically, and then after a while of working at my desk they turn off. I then get up and walk a few steps to get them back on again. This morning, I got up from my desk to get the lights back on and then started turning off and on again at random. It was very strange. It lasted for about 30 seconds and then everything was normal again. I’ve put a short video of it below.
In other news, our students have finally decided it was time to create some more permanent name tags for their lockers in the shop. After a few different iterations, they settled on making acrylic nametags. They spray paint the back of clear acrylic whatever color they want, then engrave their names in reverse on the acrylic. It creates a really nice finish. They are measuring and drilling holes into the lockers today, and will probably spend some time next week finishing the job. Each student is responsible for making their own locker tag. Below is an example.
Today I needed to work on a lasercut project for the Camp Mustang that will be happening next week at the high school. Camp Mustang is a 2 day in school event for elementary and secondary school students within the Medford school district. I will be offering students CAD lessons, lasercutting, and some basic electronics. Several years ago, at my previous teaching job, I created a lasercut bug that could be assembled and then an LED and battery press fit into it so it lit up. I’ve created something similar for students but more of a robot shape. I’m still waiting on some material to cut each one out on, hoping that arrives today – otherwise I will be rushing around next week to get these cut for the students to assemble. For now, you can see the image that is used to lasercut on our Epilog Fusion Pro lasercutter.
