How to survive a day in a middle school metal shop...

How to survive a day in a middle school metal shop:

Plug yer ears and put your angry eyes on.



Seriously though, Mr. Grumpypants the teacher isn't good for anyone.  Glad I work with people that understand that!  Wore these glasses in one class, and one of my students looked at me for about a minute with a goofy look on his face, and finally said, "Mr. T, I just can't take you serious with that look on your face."

Been a rough week, but lots of fun.  The trimester ends next week, so of course everything associated with that - grades, finals, new rosters, new units, new classes to teach, end of tri activities, etc.- is driving teachers and students buggy.  Throw into the mix 3 days worth of subs for my classes while I attended a PLC conference in SLC.  Ironic, eh?

The conference was GREAT.  I (we) learned so much stuff our heads hurt, but we came away with a ton of great ideas, and wishing that everyone in our school could have been there to see the big picture of what could be possible.  For those of you who don't know- PLC is an education acronym for "Professional Learning Communities" (sorry Dad, it doesn't mean programmable logic controller...).  Rick Dufour has written several books on the subject, as has his wife Becky and the rest of the folks who presented at this conference.

Pretty hard to condense 3 days worth of excellent presentations, but I think if you could simplify it all down to a main idea it would be something along the lines of:  Working together with other teachers as a TEAM is better for all involved- teachers and students, and you will get more done with less work and get better results.

If only it were that simple!  Too often (and I'm super guilty of this) I think teachers prefer to do their own thing in their own room- or teach in isolation as the Dufours put it.  They have this whole idea of  "Loose and Tight", where there are strict and rigid guidelines put in place, but the teacher is left to determine the HOW.  This mean the teacher can still practice their "art" while STILL working as a team towards a common goal.

I came away with a much better understanding of a lot of basic principles of education- both on the WHY and the HOW.  Formative assessments, summative assessments, guaranteed curriculum, essential elements, when you see why it needs to be done and the knowledge / data that can come out of it, you see why it's so important.

The best part of all of this?!  It's LESS work for the teacher, and the students get MORE one on one time if it's needed.  The downside, of course, is that it only works if everyone is willing to do it.

I could go on but I've had all of this stuff bouncing around in my head for the last 4 days and I'd really like to change gears to something a little more... mechanical?  Time to unplug and enjoy the weekend, but here's a start for y'all:



This was on top of a post near the convention center.  It had maybe a 4 foot wingspan, the props spun in the wind, and it acted like a wind vane.  Would LOVE to build something like this, and I don't think it would be too super hard.  I'll add it to my list of stuff to do, right after surviving a school year, finishing Dan's chariot, building a sidecar for one of my bikes, figuring out what to do with the old Dodge's, and on, and on, and ....

You can find more info on the Dufours and PLC's at allthingsplc.info or http://www.solution-tree.com/

John Deere Green, with a chainlink twist.

Update on my John Deere 314 project.
My brother bought a 4 wheeler that came with a plow, so he lent me his blade. Got it all mounted up just fine.



Even tried it out!



There's a big low spot right there that always turns into a giant puddle. The tractor worked pretty good, still need to do some tuning on the carb it seems. After about 15 minutes of work though, I think I busted the bolt I installed in the drive line. Quit moving and had no hydraulics. Got to pull the pan up and check the bolt. In the meantime I picked up this,



So I can mount it at the same time I pull the pan back off to see what happened with the drive line.

AND! Finally went over to my brothers neighbor and settled on a price for some more attachements. I bought a tiller and a blower from him and he threw in a deck for free. The deck is REALLY rough though so I might not end up using it. Not sure what kind of shape the tiller and blower are in but for the price he asked I really don't care as long as they are complete. Looks like I should have everything I need except the belt director box that hangs under the front of the tractor when you want to use the deck.

A few days later :

Went to our local CAL ranch store. Getting real sick of their crappy hardware selection, and on top of that it hasn't been cleaned, sorted, or RESTOCKED in several months so all of the stuff you would normally need is out of stock. AND- No frickin pens to write down your parts. Almost tempted to go pay the higher prices at Fastenal. *sigh*

Anyways, here's what I finally came up with based on the limited selection they had. Just took an allen bolt and turned down the end, and reused the original set screw on the other side. Seems to be a lot more solid.





Got it installed and loctited, set the pan on with some new bolts, and installed the new seat. Again, CAL ranch didn't have the right stuff so I had to improvise a bit, but it is bolted down and not moving.

Now for the fun stuff. Couldn't bring myself to pay the price for a used steering wheel, and mainly didn't want to wait a week to get it so I sat down this afternoon with some scraps and this is what I came up with.

Wrap some old chain around a 5 gallon bucket and tack weld it.



Note- it WILL melt bits of the bucket...

WELD the back side.



Fabricate some spokes.



Attach spokes to wheel.





Improvise alignment tool to get wheel "pretty darn" straight, and tack weld.





Weld it, sand blast it, and wire wheel it.



Slap a coat of paint on it and Bob's your uncle!



You can see where the square piece busted out the center of the plastic wheel. I reused that on the new one- and its pretty much just an interference fit inside the square tube at the center of the new wheel. Might eventually weld it, we'll see how it lasts.

Installed.





Ran it around pushing dirt / gravel, seemed to work great. Steering wheel is solid, seat is comfy, and I even gouged the blade in hard a time or two and the driveline didn't break! (knock on wood)

Now to get the deck, tiller, and snow thrower down here.

Dan's Chariot #10- Trailer in MOTION!

Time to get 'er done.

Fender mounts.





Spent some time polishing off all the nasty beads you get when using a flux core wire feed welder.





Frame "done", ready for assembly so testing can commence!



Install basket.





Install foot pan.



Install seat.



Install belts.



Make yet ANOTHER axle... and install it. The smaller rod above the axle is an interference fit, holds the axle in there nice and tight. It can be removed with a hammer and a punch sorta easily if I want to change the axle later.


Assembled!







Trailer hitch.





Ready to go.



Will definitely need a fender on the back wheel.



Turns pretty sharp before the tire rubs on the tongue!



And for your viewing enjoyment, some video. Please excuse my skinny butt...



Really close now!  Need to dig my bike out so I can hook it up to a bike that doesn't have parts falling off of it every 30 feet or so (this is a "school" bike - and has had dozens of 12 year olds working on it...).  Still need to make a caster attachment, but other than that, barring any failures during testing, I think the hard parts done!

Dans Chariot #9 - Tying up loose ends.

I've been chipping away here and there over the last couple of weeks, so here's an update.

Made the inner fender covers. They're a bit bigger so we can be sure that Dan can't get his fingers caught in the wheel.







Got it all fit up to the rest of the fender just to see how it was all going to work.





Getting the holes for the axle to align was a bit of a challenge...

Bought some thing plastic sheet off of ebay to extend the outside and top of the fenders. Cut it out and bent it up.



Removed the outer cover to punch a few more holes in the back,



and put it all together.







Back to some more framework- finishing up a few of the modifications. Cut a couple of chunks out of a lawnmower handlebar, welded them together, cut 'em down, and tacked them into place. This is the bar that their basket will mount to so they can carry misc. junk.



I've been going back and forth about how to do this next part for at least a month. It's go time. I decided to just use a standard bicycle head tube and handlebars for a couple of reasons- 1st, its pretty much built, and 2nd, it's very easy to adjust or change styles of handle bars. Simple is nice. Now the chariot can double as an ultra cool stroller!







Still have lots of cleanup to do, but you get the idea.

Even managed to start on the fender mounting brackets.





Once I get the axle in, I can match the holes I made in the fender, drill the brackets, bolt the fender on, and figure out where the upper bracket needs to go.

Getting closer... My list is getting shorter.