After a recent Professional Development day Northern Michigan University, I am hoping to put this blog back on my priority list.  You know, like all teachers, priorities are something that shift from week to week and day to day.  The blog, because it isn’t really a “have to do” kind of thing – is something I find easy to shift to the bottom of the pile.  If you look back at the archive dates, you can see I rarely make it to the bottom of my pile! 

But I was reminded again (at this PD day) that technology isn’t going away.  Education has step it up a little if we are going to keep pace with these kids of ours.  And with that in mind, I am hoping to “publish” what we are doing in each of the CADD classes here at Gwinn High School and show off just how capable my students are.

Its hard to explain why the blog  got ignored at the start of this school year. 

To tell you, our readers, how these things happen, is to admit (rather publicly) that sometimes I, as a teacher, fail to keep all the balls in the air.  The blog is simply one of those many priorities you seem to start the year with and as you move forward – with design projects and shop changes and new students – you shuffle it to the back of the pile and somehow, suddenly, its February and you still haven’t gotten to the blog.

So here we are.  Attempting to start back into things again.

Let me share a few of our accomplishments with you.  Since the beginning of the year our CADD 3 class has built new work tables (1/4″ thick steel tops), new welding tables (4′x6′ with 1/2″ thick steel tops), a tool crib (6′ x 14′), and worked hard at making our shop a nice place to work.

Now we are ready to start our Spring Projects and for this year the kids have chosen some tough ones.  Some SolidWorks models are almost done of the new designs.  I will show you those designs here and then tell you about them in the next post.

Josh Shaw

The CADD go-kart project is awsome, the kart is huge, about as big as a car. My favorite part of the project was getting the roll cage together, i came out looking so good. The kart is fast and it works good, the suspension is a little stiff well it’s really stiff. but it still works. The shifter that got put togther with the clutch on the hanle works great. It kart is really fast, but really hard to steer when your sitting still but once your moving it’s not bad, the more we dirve the loser it gets. I still can’t belive how fast the kart came togther once the frame was done. My had some problems but everything is finished and working good but it’s done and were driving it.

The go-kart is finally done! I can’t believe we actually finished it in time. I was getting worried towards the end that we wouldn’t finish it. I drove it yesterday and I was completely taken aback. We ran out of parking lot before I could even get it into 4th gear. It has surpassed all my expectations and then some. There was a slight problem with the steering, (it’s a little stiff), but that is to be expected. It wasn’t meant to have a steering wheel, or that much weight on it.

-Josh Underwood-

The go-kart is now to the point where we can drive it! There are somethings that we can improve on now that we know it runs. Like the steering, we found that it’s a pain to turn. We are thinking of ideas to  modify it to make it easier. So we finished it before are graduation at the end of the month. For now we are going to test it to find if the steering is that bad when we are off blacktop.

                Dustin Heidtman

So far the go-kart has been a lot of fun. I ‘m happy that we had the chance to acually assemble a full suspension vechile, it was a good experience for everyone. I helped Jake a lot when we were bending the tubes to make the frame and roll bars, at first it was a challenge but like anything time makes it easier. We faced a few difficulties along the way when it came to linkages and throttle/brake cables. I also helped out on the exhaust we had to change it up a little bit so it was so long, but that went a long pretty easy.

                      Tanner Colantonio

Reuben Schultz,

The Dune Buggy is almost finished this week; we are putting the finishing touches on the throttle and the rear brakes. We put lights on last week; we had some problems with one of the lights, but we eventually found a faulty connection in the wiring. The brakes are almost done, they just need to be welded up. The last thing that is major on the dune buggy is the throttle which we are trying to fix.

I would say many of us were skeptical and didn’ t think we would finish our project before we graduated.  I don’t think we would have finished our project without the extra time, effort and dedication put in from the entire class.  We have progressed from CADD 1 to CADD 2 and we have advanced from CADD 2 to CADD 3, our skill, experience, and knowledge has been apparent in our project.  I don’t think any of this could have been possible if it weren’t for every single person’s dedication to the CADD 3 program.  I would like to thank Mr. Routhier and the entire CADD 3 class for an awesome year!  Thanks again,

Tyler

I think the Go-cart project has been fun. I enjoyed working on the parts and welding it all together. It was fun getting all the parts ready and helping jake bend the metal. i did alot of the welding. jake helped do the welding and tanner helped get stuff ready. tanner jake and i did alot of stuff together.

The go-kart project has been a lot of fun. Most of the time it’s been easy making parts for the go-kart, but other times, it hasn’t. One of my favorite parts to make is to bend the pieces for the frame and then help josh weld them up. At first when I tried to use the bender it was kind of complicated. But after using it a few times I got use to it. Welding was fun because I haven’t done it in such a long time. Other things I liked about the project was watching it come together and taking shape. Some of the things I disliked were the long designing stage of the project. Overall the project has been fun and educational.

Jake LHuillier