Laptop Checks

 I. Students must bookmark these sites in a "Barber Folder" on their toolbar. (Here's how):

1. Barber Shop Website (YOU NEED THE ONE FROM THIS YEAR, NOT LAST YEAR)
2. Barber of Cville Blog 
3. Henley Homepage 
4. Google Drive 
5. Schoology
6. PowerSchool 
7. TinkerCad (Please don't log-in yet ... we will log in as a class)
8. maker:bit / Microsoft Make Code (Please don't log-in yet ... we will log in as a class)
9. Delicious BBQ (students must find this in Schoology and break it out of Schoology before bookmarking!)
10. Daily Slideshow (students must find the link in Schoology that says "BOOKMARK THIS LINK" and break it out of Schoology before bookmarking!)

II. Your charger has 2 pieces, and, therefore, needs 2 labels, one on each part. You need a flag on your removable cord affixed with clear packing tape (your first and last name!) and you need to tape over your label with clear packing tape:

New Way (this year)- notice the shininess of the packing tape!

Old Way (last year)

III. You also need to pin shortcuts on your taskbar to the 2 apps we download:

• Arduino IDE- We download this from Software Center (quick download)
• Adobe Illustrator- We download Adobe Creative Cloud from Software Center, THEN we download and install Adobe Illustrator from CC. These will both take a LONG TIME! Close as many apps and tabs as you can!

Arduino

Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe Illustrator

IV. Come show Mr. Barber when you're pretty sure you're going to get a good grade (not when you've done only a little of the Laptop Check ... I don't want to enter in a 4/14 F!!)

Henley Picnic Table Service Project

This post is under construction (see what I did there?)

Usually, my engineering classes build doghouses for needy dogs through Houses of Wood and Straw. It's a wonderful service program, provides a LOT of valuable learning in the woodshop, and H.O.W.S. reaches out to local businesses, like Blue Ridge Building, to donate the wood. I typically have Guidance schedule as many Engineering classes in the fall so that they can participate in this and save as many dogs as possible from a freezing winter. This year, H.O.W.S. is holding off with builds, etc. because of the high price of lumber. I have had to pivot to a new project that doesn't have someone donating wood. I immediately focused on helping the school with hall passes and directional signs while I noticed the lack of outdoor seating for all of our outdoor lunches (which are out there, of course, due to Covid). The only drawback is the high cost of lumber and hardware.

I'm currently pricing everything it will take to build 15 doghouses (5 per class) for Henley at both Home Depot and Blue Ridge Building Supply (now called Cardinal Home Center), but I fully expect it to be quite costly.  

My assistant principal Becky Fisher and principal Beth Costa have encouraged me to go ahead with the process. I really do feel like this is both a useful and a worthy service project for my kids in my engineering classes, in addition to providing Henley students with a valuable resource, as we spend so much time outdoors during Covid.

I have found Home Depot's plans: https://www.homedepot.com/c/ah/how-to-build-a-picnic-table/9ba683603be9fa5395fab902da03929  to be HORRIBLE. My class and I are interpreting them and making new plans as we go. The pictures don't match the materials or the directions, so we are even taking pictures. Here is our slideshow, complete with plans and guidelines for excellence:

First TinkerCad Assignment- Name Keychain

Before you work on TinkerCad, your folks at home have to sign and return the TinkerCad Permission Form and the Safety Form.

This was my first TinkerCad Project this year. I followed along with this blog entry, which has short videos and pictures throughout. In the end, I changed the filename to my username and the words NameKeyChain squished together and capitalized the first letter. (YOUR username is your initials and a number or a letter) .... MIGHT I SUGGEST MAKING YOURS EXTRA CHONKY to make it more durable!

By clicking on the square with 3 dots and 3 lines to the left of my username (if you hover over it, it says "recent designs"), I could find where it's saved in the cloud. After clicking on it, I clicked on more designs and it showed me all the designs that I've ever done, with this, the most recent one, at the top.

We will be taking a ScreenSnip of this and putting it on a Google Doc, along with future CADs. Remember you screenshot on your ACPS-provided laptop by hitting <Windows> <shift> <s> at the same time!

Newly updated Adobe How To (when you want to use it to lasercut)

Click on this video and follow the directions to make a "laser-cuttable" scribble on Adobe Illustrator! This should work for all 2018-2019 ACPS student Lenovos and the desktop computers in the CTE Lab.

Houses of Wood and Straw

Houses of Wood and Straw

My 8th grade Engineer/Build class got to build doghouses for needy dogs this semester. This was bigger than any wood project that I've ever done in my life. I split the class into 5 groups and each group got a small, medium, or large house to build. We planned, designed, and wrote on plywood. We used T-squares, rulers, measured and measured again. I cut the wood on the table saw, but the kids did every other part. My students drilled, screwed in screws, marked angles with pencils, caulked, and waterproofed. They problem-solved when there was a mistake, they stayed late, and they came down during wrapup at the end of the day.

 

 

I'm proud to say that each group used critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity and successfully and proudly came up with a structure for each needy canine.

 

The icing on the cake was when local TV stations came in and reported on this project.  My class was on Cloud 9. I look forward to helping my kids help out their community in the future!

The HOWS Project is run by an animal-loving, tree-hugging, peace-wishing vegan named Stacey Norris. If you need a doghouse, you can contact her through this contact form or by calling this number and leaving a voicemail at this number (434)882-1847.

There are SO many needy dogs out there ... please consider helping ... you can donate your time or your money .... you can donate materials or educate others .... you can report needy dogs .... you can write to your legislature.

NBC29 Story on the Web "Albemarle Students Build, Distribute Free Doghouses"

CBS19 Story on the Web "Walton Students Build Dog Houses For Service Project"

-Jon Barber
CTE Teacher Walton Middle School
hoosjon@blogspot.com
twitter.com/hoosjon

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