Roibotics Area Organized

On our second day back, I was fortunate to have a student come help sort the robotics parts.  I obtained metal shelving and tubs over the summer to make our life much easier during the next build season.

Hall Passes

In the first faculty meeting of the year, teachers have been informed to ask student to leave their cell phone with the teacher while out of the room.  No hall passes may be written to go buy food or drink.

Eastern Mennonite University tour

I had the opportunity today to tour the solar roof top of the library at Easter Mennonite University.  A retired engineer in the county arranged for James Sattva and myself to meet university officials and the representative from Secure Futures, a firm in Staunton, VA.  This is one of my first steps to bring solar energy production to the town of Luray and Page County Schools.  Mr. Sattva already has a smaller system in place on the roof of the Tech Center.  We are exploring how we can scale up alternative energy usage in the schools.  One of my long term goals isto better incorporate curriculum in alternative energy and have working systems on campus where the general public can learn also.

VTEEA summer Conference

Carol Edelman with a FTC robot.

My annual VTEEA summer conference was very successful.  Rick Dyer showed me how to create stop motion videos which I plan to incorporate in the Technology Foundations classes.  Using low cost materials one can get very creative in film making.  I'm currently trying to juggle instructional budgets to determine how many software licenses can be purchased or if using the free SAM animation version will have to be used this year.

I also learned quite a bit about pneumatic systems and what products are on the market for education.

The best part was meeting Carol Edelman, VirginiaFIRST Director, Program and Outreach.  I've applied for a Rockwell Collins grant that will enable a FTC team to start up.  I've made several contacts with other Technology teachers in our county and it looks like we may register 2 teams.  The FTC season is earlier in the school year and it is possible for  me to mentor both a FTC team and FRC team.  My wife teaches in Rappahannock County Elementary school and she is in the process of starting a brand new FLL team.

New Robotics Parts are Here!

   We are very fortunate to now have several new Andy Mark products. I have in hand:  2 new jaguars at $119.00 each, 2   Double Doozy Cap Assembly for GEM Gearbox (am-0629) at  $120.00 each; and 2 Super Shifter (am-0114) at $360.00 each.   This is over a thousand dollars of hardware at no extra cost to Team #3307!
   My photo shows only one of each.   If I did not relate the value of the "mini robot" made durign the JMU Content Academy week earlier in June, it is over $1,800.00

'Met Tower' Decommissioned

Thursday, August 8th, the team from James Madison University came and removed the 'met tower' from back behind the Technology lab.  LHS has had the loaner tower to collect wind speed and direction over the course of a year.  I'll share the final report on the data when it comes in.  -  We are still in the selection process for a wind turbine grant of $15,000.00 

Teaching Assignment 2012-2013

Power School has listed my classes for the upcoming school year.

Fall Semester
1st block - Technical Drawing & Design  currently has 9 enrolled
2nd block - Architectural Drawing and Design (Dual enrolled with LFCC)  currently has 3 enrolled
3rd block - Technology Foundations  currently has 14 enrolled with only one 10th grader, rest upcoming 9th
4th block - Planning

Second Semester
1st block - Technology Transfer  currently has 14 enrolled with two 10 graders, rest upcoming 9th whom must have taken Foundations at the middle school 
2nd block - Technology Foundations - currently has 14 enrolled with 3 10th graders & the rest upcoming 9th
3rd block - Planning
4th block - Robotics (Dual Enrolled with JMU)   currently has 7 enrolled