Gearboxes - FA 17
Planning
The theme of this project is climate change. During this semester the students will learn about climate change by making mechanical animations which illustrate physics principles that inform climate change. This is my first semester long project so worked to ensure that I had planned everything well in advance.
In our school there are many windows which allow visitors to look into our classrooms from the hallways. They are each about 24" by 24" and have varying depths from 4" to 6". I have heard in the past about teachers using these as exhibition spaces for student work and wanted to do the same. I also like the idea of the kids building things in our class that will be displayed semi-permanently for the rest of their high school experience. We were also due to receive a new laser cutter in our building which I know from previous experience is fairly engaging to the kids. |
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During the previous semester my partners and I found a common interest in climate science and climate change. We found that almost half of the US adult population does not believe that climate change in caused primarily by human activity (Pew 2016). There seemed to be a tension between scientific evidence and human anecdotes or experiences. An essential question emerged of "What is the best way to tell someone about climate change; through data or through stories?". We set out to present each style of persuasion, one in humanities and one in physics.
For physics I decided to expose the class to each of the concepts first then let them choose which one they were interested in illustrating. For myself I chose to illustrate how energy is transformed from motion of electrons to light which relates to climate change because light is emitted from the sun and carries energy to the earth. I browsed 507movements.com for inspiration rather than try and generate a unique mechanical movement. There I found movement #166 which converts rotary motion into linear motion. This reminded me of an atom shooting out photons so I decided to build it. |
I used GearGenerator.com to create the gears needed to power the motion and Adobe Illustrator to lay out my pieces for the laser cutter. The laser cutter is great for this type of work because it is easy to scale down the work for prototyping. Nothing reveals issues in a design like building it out. Once a prototype is made it's easy to go back to the Illustrator file and make changes before printing out another prototype. My Illustrator sketches can be seen in the slideshow above.
Once I had a file that I could print and assemble in the small scale all I had to do was scale it up to full size. I built the frame by measuring the interior of the window I was using and create a box shape with the back covered in acrylic and the front left open. The most difficult part of the box was making the 45 degree cuts for the trim. |
Once my exemplar was built I sat down and worked backwards from the finished product to determine what each student group needed to do during the semester. To make the full scale model they would need both a wooden and cardboard prototype. To make the prototype they would need to have some experience making gears and know what physics concept they would want to model. To have experience they would need to have made gears before and to be familiar with the concepts they would need to have worked with them before. I decided to spend a week on each topic in the beginning of the semester and just like that I had my plan.
TO DO in Semester: 1. Make small wooden gearset with a friend 2. Experiment with the 4 physics concepts (4 weeks) 3. Pick a physics concept and choose how to model it. 4. Write a proposal 5. Create a cardboard prototype 6. Create a wooden prototype 7. Build window box and full scale gearset 8. Polish and mount |
Notes After Completion
Each group built their box for a member of our staff and so had to get their designs approved by the staff member. We called these the "stakeholders". I led lessons on writing professional emails and setting up meetings. Students needed to be prepared for their meetings with proposal documents and mockup designs. Many of the stakeholders requested color be added to the boxes so I provided tempura paint and clear coat spray to the class.
This project overall went very slowly. No student groups finished their projects by my original deadline, and no student groups finished before the week of our exhibition. The final three weeks were spent slowly tapping away at their project work and by the end the kids had spent 9 weeks on their boxes, and were exhausted. Class days became dedicated to work time to allow everyone to complete boxes but most of the large tools were outside the classroom and so I spent much of my time hustling back and forth to help kids finish tasks. It was great to be on my feet, but I began to feel a disconnect with the rest of the class.
This project overall went very slowly. No student groups finished their projects by my original deadline, and no student groups finished before the week of our exhibition. The final three weeks were spent slowly tapping away at their project work and by the end the kids had spent 9 weeks on their boxes, and were exhausted. Class days became dedicated to work time to allow everyone to complete boxes but most of the large tools were outside the classroom and so I spent much of my time hustling back and forth to help kids finish tasks. It was great to be on my feet, but I began to feel a disconnect with the rest of the class.
Reflection
1. What surprised you in this project?
I was surprised by how long we spent on the project. My teaching team and I decided to add another deliverable midway through the semester which shifted focus away from completing the gearboxes. The students then had multiple group projects that they were responsible for and additional deadlines which I think detracted from both products. I was positively surprised by how excited the students got by the creative aspect of the project. Many of their stakeholders requested color, and the kids really invested time into making their projects colorful. Unfortunately this meant that the projects really started to deviate from each other and do not look unified at all. Having color made each project unique and special but if the class had picked a color scheme I think it would have been better. |
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2. What will you never do again in a project?
Philosophically, I did not want to associate a grade with the final project. I graded their work by having them write reflections based on different stages of the project. While this worked well as a way of grading I was unhappy when the entire class missed the deadline I had given for the final product. By not finishing 3 weeks ahead of exhibition we didn't have time to revise and refine any of the projects. The result of this was an overall mediocre quality and fragility of many of the finished boxes. In future projects I need a way to reward or show the reward of finishing work on time. Another thing I will not do again is start the semester with anything but the project. This semester we spent six weeks with related mini projects and experiments which ultimately just took up our time. In the future I want to finish the project first and then look back into their work and fill in information based off of what students have made and done. This way all the information means something to the kids and they all have a connection to it. |
3. What are you most proud of from this project?
I'm very proud of how the class was able to learn to manage all their projects as the semester progressed. I was micromanaging less and less throughout the weeks as they became more independent. I am also proud of many of the final projects themselves, though it's hard for me to see them without thinking how much more they might have been if I had stuck to my original schedule.
I'm very proud of how the class was able to learn to manage all their projects as the semester progressed. I was micromanaging less and less throughout the weeks as they became more independent. I am also proud of many of the final projects themselves, though it's hard for me to see them without thinking how much more they might have been if I had stuck to my original schedule.
March 2018 revisit
It's been 3 months since the completion of this project and only 3 of the gearboxes were built to a high enough degree of quality to survive more than a week after exhibition. Were I to run this project again I would shorten the length given to complete it and require a fixed number of drafts before accepting any designs. I still agree with above statements of mine where I wished we had finished earlier and spent more time critiquing the work. As I look at this project now I feel that it could be started and completed in only 7 or 8 weeks.
New Proposed Timeline:
Week 1: Make some gears with a friend
Week 2: Create shadowbox to exactly fit a window in the school, propose mechanical motion
Week 3: Draft 1 mechanism in 1/2 scale. Proposal Poster finished
Week 4: Draft 2 and 3 mechanism 1/2 scale
Week 5: Begin draft 4/Final in full scale
Week 6: Polish and refine final mechanism
Week 7: Draft 1 and 2 "concept poster" for another group's piece
Week 8: Print concept posters, mount mechanisms, reflection writing.
This new timeline is much tighter and focused. After having run this project once I feel confident in students ability to complete everything on schedule. It also emphasizes multiple drafts of the deliverables to help focus on refinement over time versus finishing at the last second.
New Proposed Timeline:
Week 1: Make some gears with a friend
Week 2: Create shadowbox to exactly fit a window in the school, propose mechanical motion
Week 3: Draft 1 mechanism in 1/2 scale. Proposal Poster finished
Week 4: Draft 2 and 3 mechanism 1/2 scale
Week 5: Begin draft 4/Final in full scale
Week 6: Polish and refine final mechanism
Week 7: Draft 1 and 2 "concept poster" for another group's piece
Week 8: Print concept posters, mount mechanisms, reflection writing.
This new timeline is much tighter and focused. After having run this project once I feel confident in students ability to complete everything on schedule. It also emphasizes multiple drafts of the deliverables to help focus on refinement over time versus finishing at the last second.