Project Lead The Way
Ok, so a little bit of background: I was a school teacher for a long time. I taught in the arts, one of the last subjects that hasn’t had it’s creativity smothered by the testing trend of the past 10 years. I was lucky, I had the best job at the time. This student, writing for his High School newspaper, Garfield High School in Seattle Public Schools, describes an even better job! I have to say that if I could go back in time, I would have begged, borrowed and stolen to find a way to get a laser cutter and 3D printer for my class!
Three-dimensional printer: $18,900. Laser engraver: $24,000. The irony that they’re both locked up and collecting dust at Garfield: priceless.Originally, both pieces of equipment were supposed to be part of a new pre-engineering class at Garfield: Project Lead the Way PLTW. Theoretically, the class would offer Garfield students a uniquely engaging, hands-on introduction to engineering.“The district picks and chooses what programs it wants to invest in,” says Principal Ted Howard II. “When the building was renovated, it was decided that Garfield would implement Project Lead the Way, so [the district] went out and bought all the materials.”In addition to purchasing the 3D printer and the laser engraver, the district also invested in a robotic arm, nearly 30 robots, and other costly technology.“We have a whole bunch of equipment that’s ostensibly to teach students about beginning engineering concepts,” says Helene Martin, who teaches the new creative computing and computer science classes at Garfield.According to Martin’s estimates, the total value of the equipment may exceed $200,000.Unfortunately, PLTW never became fully operational at Garfield. The curriculum demands a teacher with a strong engineering background.“We couldn’t find anyone that would actually teach PLTW,” says Howard. “We ended up going through five or six teachers.”
I know how schools work. There isn’t enough money to cover the needs of teachers and students and every year the money gets shifted in the hopes that it will be a better balance. Still, I hope that these machines get to be used and abused by young people before they are sold off by the school district at auction.
Is there something that could be done? Yes! Find a teacher who teaches engineering who wouldn’t mind having access and get them to teach an after school class could be put in place to use the tools. Only students with an interest would go and they would learn to build the future!
via Project Lead The Way – The Garfield Messenger.
Hélène Martin
February 6th, 2010 at 10:48 pm #
I agree that it’s great equipment and I’m hoping it’s available to students soon. BUT. At a few hundred dollars per pound of stock for the 3D printer, I feel it’s a little silly? I feel students would learn more with manual machines and then could be involved in making things like a MakerBot and other tools that run cheaply. When I did shop in high school, we bought used machines and had a really well-stocked full shop for reasonably cheap. Moreover, all projects were student-initiated, we got funding, we were excited about what we were doing.
Do you know much about the Project Lead the Way curriculum? The implementations I’ve seen were disappointing. Lots of students following step-by-step tutorials and playing flash games to kill time. With one machine for ~30 students per class, there’s very little time for actually making stuff!
Ben Rockhold
February 7th, 2010 at 3:12 am #
As a student of the nearby Roosevelt and of PLTW last year, I can say on some (meager) authority that Garfield is missing out. The Z-corp machine RHS got was my inspiration to one-up what the district was getting ripped-off on. In the year since then, the club I’m president of has quite nearly produced a reprap-based “headcrab” to convert the CNC mill (the last expensive hardly-used thing) to an FDM + multi-tool machine.
The last thing we did in PLTW was, if I remember correctly, spend months of lounging around waiting for the organizers to finally send us the software they promised from the first week. We got it with 18 days to finish, and had to half-ass the thing. This was not too bad, we spent a lot of time planning.
Thane
February 7th, 2010 at 5:13 am #
I was a student of PLTW last year and am more than a little disappointed in the curriculum. The class is very structured, and it seemed the the grade I got was based on how well I followed the bureaucracy that the class required, not on how much I’d learned. The best parts of the class were the projects, but these were interspersed by long periods of rote note-taking and button pushing on the computer.
The other thing that bugged me about the curriculum was the monetary waste. We had 20 some Fischertechnik kits (at >$2000 apiece) which were flimsy and difficult to use, a Dimension Printer which wasn’t used in my class at all, a set small Fishertechnik demo pistons (buying real ones from Bimba and Festo probably would have cost the same), 30+ copies of Inventor, and several copies of Labview. So many of these materials were never used, and the things they were intended to teach could have been taught to us in much cheaper and easier ways.
There are two things that I think would drastically improve the class: Firstly, increase the amount of hands-on learning. If you have the expensive tools, use them, but many schools have a well stocked shop that would be just fine. I now realize that my school had two Bridgeports and several MIG welders sitting in the corner that were never used. I wish I knew why. On my own time, I measured, modeled, and printed a TI-89 Calculator case. It was the coolest thing I did in relation to the class, and taught me more about modeling and tolerances than the class ever did.
Secondly, the curriculum needs a way to interest students at all levels. Some students needed more time to learn the material, or needed a different presentation of it, while others would finish everything in 5 minutes without thinking about it, and spent the rest of the class counting down the minutes.
In general, I feel that PLTW needs to spend more time improving their curriculum (even quickly spellchecking the handouts would help), and less time marketing it and the expensive toys it requires.
Martin Dillon
February 7th, 2010 at 12:38 pm #
As a teacher for 15+ years, this is all too familiar. One thing that needs to be said is that “all that money” is provided through vocational funding which is separate from general funds and this is usually treated as fun money for the superintendent. I usually would only see half or a third of my budget. The rest was siphoned away to pay for computers and printing supplies.
As far as PLTW goes, anyone with any sense can see it is a waste of money. There is also a large annual fee that has to be paid. Administrators typically go to some convention and get sold a line of bull and then want the shop teacher to teach it. On the other hand it takes a huge amount of time to put together a program from scratch. Often programs like PLTW get funded through grant programs. Obama has committed to spend lots of money to support STEM (science math engineering and technology). Do it yourself programs don’t get funding because they don’t have salesmen and glossy handouts.
The ironic part is that there is a big push for STEM but state testing and risk management has shut down most shop programs and there is talk about cutting special funding for vocational programs. Now you know why you can’t find teachers. There is also the need for constant professional development. I used to teach computer repair, Cisco networking, metal shop and engineering. I had to purchase and maintain all of the equipment in both shops and keep current on the latest technology. Just to keep up with new developments in computers was more than I could do.
To the students who responded, good for you for taking control of your education but I know what it is like to manage students and equipment. If you think that a teacher is going to let some students work on a milling machine while others are laser cutting and the rest are building robots, it is not going to happen. I typically go through the garbage and remove tools because it was easier to throw away than put away. Or I have had students wander over to the milling machine to check it out and end up snapping off a $30 end mill. All that money you see being spent is not available to the teacher. I used to go to Boeing surplus and buy tools and material with my own money.
Enough of my rant, I just hope you can find a good teacher. There are good ones coming out of Western Washington University every year.
Hélène Martin
February 7th, 2010 at 1:05 pm #
Martin — you hit the nail on the head. It’s so refreshing to hear another teacher say it how it is.
Look, yes, all this equipment is at Garfield (I’m the teacher quoted in the Garfield article in case that wasn’t clear!). But they’ve never even been plugged in. But I can’t install any software on the computers I have so I don’t even have drivers for the darn things; I’d have to use my personal laptop to interface with them. But we don’t have any software licenses this year. But I have no budget for stock so if I want students to do anything I have to go out and buy it myself. But I teach my own classes 5 hours a day.
Imagine if we could sell that 3D printer and its stock… we could buy a whole shop’s worth of used machines and get some really cool projects going.
Rob
February 7th, 2010 at 2:38 pm #
I was pleased to see the RapMan (a RepStrap) featuring on the local news in the UK. It seems like BitsFromBytes are putting a lot of effort into getting the machines into schools which is good news. You can watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5Uvx__RuqI