Starting to feel like summer here in New England. Today was a beautiful day in the shop. We had the garage door open and we were working on the cardboard canoes. A good time to be in school. Tomorrow is the last day for our seniors, although they had a lot of other items to take care of today during class so they were not around much. I expect much of the same today. Thursday and Friday they have other commitments at the school and do not have to be in class. Hoping they come back to finish their canoe in so they can compete on June 12.
Boat Construction
Cardboard boat construction continues here in the shop, although it looks as though my seniors will not finish their boat during this week, which is actually their last week of school. We have welcomed them to come back anytime to finish up their boats, which we hope they do. The Junior boat is coming together very well, with just one more exterior skin piece to place before they can begin working on the interior. There is still a lot of work to be done to seal the boat, but they still have about 3 weeks to go until the competition. A few progress photos of the boats.
Sign
It has taken quite a while to come together, but Senior Myles Y has nearly completed the large metal sign that will hang on the wall outside our shop. The CAD required was fairly complex, and was mostly done in Inkscape. He had to break our logo down into 4 equal parts, plus a center part to make everything fit on our waterjet, which was the machine used to cut each piece. There were a lot of hiccups, and the waterjet can be a temperamental machine at times, so there were a few stop and go moments on this project. Still, Myles persevered and we put up most of the pieces of the sign today and it looked great. There is a plan to add LED lighting on the back, but that will most likely fall on a different student next year as Myles is graduating. A few photos of the project below.
Robotics Club
I completely forgot to post about the Robotics Club, which Mr. Christy and myself are the moderators. To be fair, Mr. Christy spends much more time with the students, often staying until 8 or 9pm with them during the buildup to a recent contest. This year, the team participated in the MATE ROV competition, which is an underwater rover robot event. The event was at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy on the Cape, and we were there early in the morning. The contest was a little disorganized, and the start time was quite delayed. But that gave our team plenty of time to prepare and organize, since this was our first time at the event. We had two stints in the water with the robot, and the team learned a great deal from the day. Fortunately, we won! Out of the 4 scoring categories, we took 3 of them. We were completely surprised, but very happy for our students.
This means the team will now compete in the international event held in Long Beach, California. Mr. Christy has spent a lot of energy working on corporate sponsorship, and at this time we have raised nearly $20,000 to get the team to California, as well as created ongoing sponsorships for years to come. It’s been a great success, and no matter what happens in Long Beach, the team is going to get better and better each year. Unfortunately, neither myself or Mr. Christy will be able to attend the event in California, so a couple of parent chaperones will go with our team. I’ve posted a few photos below of the team and the rover. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to get any good video of the rover underwater!
Cardboard Canoes
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.
