Hopkins/Peterson Notes Page
101907 Hi Chris! Trying this out. Amy
10/22/07 Hi Amy. This seems fine.
Some thoughts on the class so far:
-CP I have been practicing "Just in Time" teaching. All of the sketching and Inventor lessons have been based around the needs of the immediate projects. No methodical building block style lessons intoducing the students to 3d modeling then moving to the many different types of dimensioning. So far they have been able to make simple Parts, Assemblies, Presentations and Plot Drawings (Which are all the major areas of INventor). They have no ideas about dimensioning at all.
Also the logistics of teaching in three different class, not having everything set up in our own room, and handing in projects in two different rooms have been really challenging.
11/11 - AH - traditional testing is difficult for students. Multiple choice and memorizing equations are two points of concern. Consider providing equations next test and giving more M/C for review.
11/12/07 - CP - I'll have to get in the habit of checking this when I'm on the wiki site. which is usually only once per week, when I update the syllabus. I've added an overview of the content I've covered thus far to this hidden page (and that we discussed during the PD day), as well as my idea of the rest of this quarter. Please look it over and comment. If you could add in what you've accomplished, specifically within inventor, I'd like to add that to the overview (as well as your projections until midterms). I will need to compile this and submit to Barbara to get CEUs for the PD day also.
Note that there are no build projects except possibly the one mentioned for the midterm. This, would however, need to be incorporated into class time so they could build their vehicles in school.
I agree that the logistics are more than challenging. I find myself exhausted and I think it's because I've been lacking a clear direction. I'm hoping the overview I've put together, based on our work during the PD day, will help both of us? Amy
EP Content.doc
11/15 CP I have just uploaded the Inventor overview. This will serve as an outline for the software side of the course. The general steps should be:
Title blocks
Sketching
Parts
Assemblies
Presentations
Driven Sketches
Advanced Parts
Driven Assemblies
Renderings?
Animations?
11/19 AH I've uploaded the physics EP Content page as well.
11/19 CP Notes to self about Inventor:
- Changing materials in assembly only changes color. To change materials you have to go to properties of object
- Match Faces on cylinders will make a axial constraint without a distance or rotational constraint
- Insert constraint makes both a distance and an axial constraint without a rotational constraint
-right click in rotation view to redefine isometric (F6)
11/25 CP Each time we start a new "Just in Time" drawing I need to add an additional Inventor concept. The drafting concepts (in order of instruction):
Projects
Parts
Assemblies
Presentations
Drawings
Screen Layout
-Panel View
- Browser View
- Workspace
Creating a Part
-Sketches
_ Extrusions
-Secondary sketches (NO ADDITIONAL UNNECESSARY SKETCHES)
- Secondary Extrusions
-Sketch Constraints (f8-f9)
Creating an Assembly
-choosing base part
- constraining additional parts
-match
-angle
-tangent
-insert
Creating a Presentation
-Use assemblies only
- Must use predefined distances
Creating Dimensioned Drawings
- IDW templates
11/26 AH Motion graphing has gone well. Students like the activity. Seem to understand content. Works well if incorporate a "story" to go with graph. Will incorporate into test.
11/28 AH physicsclassroom.com is helpful website.
12/5 CP Assembly drawings require many different uses of constraints. Some parts don't constrain the way that would be logical. The missing step is to add a NON-Visible part (right click and change visibility in workspace) to constrain to.
12/7 - AH and CP - still hard to integrate both engineering and physics simultaneously. CP focus still primarily on inventor, mine on physics. Would like to integrate more. Difficult.
12/8 - AH - hands on activities directly related to their lives is critical (no surprise there).
12/10 - AH - using sciencejoywagon website also. Amazingly kids are doing online work outside of class.
12/12 CP Longer parts need to be displayed using a breakout view. All students should use this, a quick one day assignment would work. Can possibly be coupled with the WorkPlane assignment. This is in the drawing (IDW) files only.
12/19 CP The coolest part of inventor is adding the component parts. This is adding parametric fasteners to assembly drawings. This feature has to be added in (maybe after the midterm). I need to figure out the metric nomenclature for metric fasteners (different than standard fractional sizes). The JETS projects generated a lot of drawings based on real world problems and parts, but didn't get finished. It would have been good to add in the component parts to these projects.
12/21 - AH and CP - presentation of midterm project. LOTS of interest. Students definitely invested in this idea of hands-on midterm. Will still need to do calculations and explanations, but will have also incorporated the steps of engineering design process. Wanted to make midterm that is reflective of goals of the curriculum.
1/3 CP I need to get training on:
_Constraints in both Sketches and Assemblies
1/5 - AH - What's working: lots of labs. Don't necessarily follow textbook. Doesn't totally fit curriculum. Don't completely like approach, so I'm picking and choosing activities and then doing the parts that apply. May want to be more selective and find different way to have kids take down data/analyze in the future. Maybe create standard "short lab" format for them to follow consistently. Direct life applications whenever possible. Draw on prior knowledge. Continue to link what they already know with physics concepts. One-on-one encouragement of individidual students very effective.
What's not working: memorizing equations. Problem solving mathematically still a real challenge. Raising confidence level of students very important, yet difficult to do on daily, individual basis! Integrating eng into phys, and phys into eng is still not well defined, although midterm is best integration yet, I think. Need to work on schedule/homework collection, etc.
- How to create interference fits in assemblies.
- How to constrain angle/ rotational movement
- Creating animations - I want to be able to create Rube Goldberg machines that are testable virtually in Inventor
1/23 CP When we set up a midterm or other project that requires building we need to demonstrate and have examples of quality work. This can be as simple as pieces of wood glued with a glue gun showing sloppy practices and neat orderly work.
We are also going to have to alot 4 weeks of preparation time for the students to get through the inventor part of the exam. They have to make dimensioned drawings for all parts and an exploded assembly drawing for the midterm.
2/29 AH - Chris this is my plan for the Light unit:
2 class periods - Act 4 - Reflected Light
2-3 class periods - Curved Mirrors -- includes experimentally finding the focal length of concave and convex mirrors, graphing of image distance vs objec distance, and using the mirror equation; also samples of different types of curved mirrors - what happens objectively as move closer and farther away; practical apps.
1 class period - introduce and practice ray diagrams with curved mirrors. Use to predict image distance and object appearance (upright, magnified, etc)
2 class periods - Act 6 - Refraction of light - I'm going to try this with gelatin. If I don't like the results, I'll use glass instead.
2 class periods -- Act 7 - effect of lenses on light - includes finding focal length of convex lens
2 class periods - using lens equation and drawing ray diagrams
2 class periods - review and test
This will take us through March 21st. Does this sound ok to you? Do you need more detail? Let me know -
3/24 CP Update on Inventor and Light. The formulas are as follows:
asin(sin(d2) / 1.33 ul) - Finding angle of refraction with known index of refraction
( sin(d0) * 1 deg / sin(d1) ) - Using Inventor to graphically show how to derive index of refraction from two angles
asin(sin(d3) * 1.33 ul) - Finding angle of refration from a denser material to air
The next step in my refraction section of the class will involve writing out the complete Snell's law and having the students figure out the third equation above. After that i will be getting together with you and setting up an assessment for the above material
Here are some good web sites that I have used throughout the year:
3/25 AH - students had much easier time with Snell's law than I had expected. Your teaching of the equation (although it looks different than the one I use) was very helpful in reinforcing what I'm doing on my end. If we could keep the overlap next year, would be good.
3/31 AH - next year I'd like to have a more formal way for kids to collect lab data. Active Physics is pretty loose in the way they have kids collect data. They're left mostly on their own for organization, etc. Think they would benefit from consistent form/format with focus on data collected and analysis of that data.
5/2 AH - kids loved van de Graaf. Seemed to really understand concepts of induction/conduction/etc. Did demo with van de Graaf, grounding ball, and ping pong ball suspended from ceiling. Very effective.
5/5 CP - don't mix AC and DC next year!
5/5 AH - we need to coordinate better in the beginning of the electricity unit so that we are reinforcing each other consistently throughout the unit
5/20 CP - Set up DC circuit curriculum. We can use standard Tech Ed electronics curriculum. Start in very small steps creating series circuits and parallel circuits. Maybe work towards actual electronic breadboarding or etching of PC boards.
5/21 AH - kids had more trouble understanding series and parallel circuits than I expected. Also trouble reading meters and setting up to read current and voltage correctly. Blew more fuses than any of my other classes! Next year, approach more slowly - have plenty of visual/alternative explanations of the similarities and diffferences between the circuits. Very little problem with math however!
5/28 CP - It is great to take real world problems and try to work them into the assignments, but only to a point. The idea that the students would be able to create a complex circuit that mixes parallel and series using house wiring was not appropriate, and only served to confuse the students. On the other hand, a few of them got it and that was very cool. The majority of them did not understand the circuit, or if they understood it, could not transfer that knowlege from a SCHEMATIC to actual wiring, even when I asked them to draw a PICTORIAL drawing.
6/2 - AH - working on mazes for final. May run short on time. Mazes themselves being put together with little difficutly. Some original ideas about how to make a door that will shut and then not reopen! Will see how wiring of light bulbs and buzzer goes. CP able to get correct buzzers from Mouser! Next year would be nice to be able to start this earlier
6/4 CP - The maze project is going well (at least the construction part). It seems to be more difficult for the students to put the parts on the top and figure out the wiring underneath. It would be good next time to do a mini lab that walks them through that process.
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