Help in building crack box

[magnafuzz]

Good work supporting the local school. I like that.

My high school had pretty awesome facilities, wood, metal, electronics and a computer lab dedicated to drafting and design. I learned some good stuff there soldering skills being one of them (built a portable siren... my sister absolutely loved how she was woken up the next morning haha). Unfortunately, not enough of the students took advantage of the resources. The ones that did learned some great skills. The funding was an issue only in that our one shop teacher was stretched thin sometimes teaching 2 or more courses simultaneously... but he made it work so i'd say we were lucky. Student interest was the biggest problem at my old school, many people i knew only took the shop courses since it was an easy credit. We were very lucky to have the facilities we did.

As for building weapons... me and my friends somehow convinced our shop teacher to let us do a "self guided tech studies" course in our final year where we basically did whatever we wanted. we spent the year building a trebuchet and doing the fun parts of a design course we already completed the past year. Some other guys built a potato cannon. the trebuchet was hardly mobile at ~25ft tall but the potato cannon was just plain dangerous. It got shut down pretty quick after they demonstrated it on someones fence from about 300+ yards..

I certainly hope the shop program is still going strong, i definitely got a lot out of it. As someone who has done some university internships over the past few years i can say that apprentice/internships are highly, highly valuable forms of education and to keep it up!

[InfernoSTi]

When talking to potential corporations looking at moving into our area, it is interesting how important a skilled workforce is.  They want some engineers, sure, but what the really want are smart, skilled folks who can think about detail, work machines, solve math problems, and do QA/QC.  If you can weld a square, assemble a circuit, and fabricate with tools, you make us more competitive.  I recently spoke with a [major international tractor manufacturer] rep who was concerned about creating the long term work force for his plant.   We need skills you learn in shop....

John

[Jim R.]

Things sure have changed... when I was in school (60s and 70s) I was fortunate enough to go to private schools through 8th grade where it was mandatory for everybody to learn woodworking (started in 1st grade), mechanical drawing (no CAD at that time), pottery, jewelry making, welding, graphic arts and printing, and plenty more woodwork.  In fact from 4th grade on, the main wood shop teacher was a master Austrian cabinetmaker -- cranky, impatient, a bit of a bully, but underneath he was totally dedicated to teaching the students and pushing everybody to doing their best.  Between him and my dad, I learned most of what I still use today.

In 9th grade I was sentenced to a catholic school and that was like going to prison -- they had only mechanical drawing to  offer, and I took it for 3 or my 4 years, but the class was an absolute joke.  There was nothing else even remotely resembling a shop or such in that school.

-- Jim

[Laudanum]

Things sure have changed... when I was in school (60s and 70s) I was fortunate enough to go to private schools through 8th grade where it was mandatory for everybody to learn woodworking (started in 1st grade), mechanical drawing (no CAD at that time), pottery, jewelry making, welding, graphic arts and printing, and plenty more woodwork.  In fact from 4th grade on, the main wood shop teacher was a master Austrian cabinetmaker -- cranky, impatient, a bit of a bully, but underneath he was totally dedicated to teaching the students and pushing everybody to doing their best.  Between him and my dad, I learned most of what I still use today.

In 9th grade I was sentenced to a catholic school and that was like going to prison -- they had only mechanical drawing to  offer, and I took it for 3 or my 4 years, but the class was an absolute joke.  There was nothing else even remotely resembling a shop or such in that school.

-- Jim

Strange considering Noah was a carpenter and Jesus probably was as well :-)

[mchurch]

I was fortunate enough to go to high school where there was both a good wood shop and teacher as well as a great technical drawing class. As far as using the tools as weapons it was never even thought of. In fact when I took chemistry we had the makings of a good bomb shop.  Ammonium Nitrate, Sodium, all Kinds of Nitric and Sulphuric acids. We learned how to make a number of nasty things that today would be considered chemical agents. No one ever considered the negative uses of any of this, its kind of sad how much things have changed for the worse.

Mike

[Grainger49]

This poster's thread has taken a left hand turn.  And I helped.

[SteveH]

Sadly, so did I.

I really would like to see the box that is eventually produced though.

SteveH