School Metalshop Closing

economy, trends in secondary education, and an ambitious, evolving curriculum."

lot of hands on work in ... rocketry, hot-air balloon design, bridge design and simple robotics ... and will give the students more marketable skills than metal shop."

So who's going to make the metal parts for the booming hot air ballon market ?

Best Regards Tom.

Hot-air balloon design??? Sounds like fun, but how can they consider this a marketable skill?

Jim Kovar Vulcan, Mi

That's sad. Must be hard to operate shop classes in our suit-happy land, I'm surprised there are any left. Never fear though, voucher-funded schools will be snapping up this equipment. :-)

Didn't know that hot-air balloon design was on anybody's class schedule. Big demand for those grads in NJ I guess.

Wayne

Or the gantry to hold the rocket up right for launch. Or make the crane parts to put up the bridge.

Oh wait there going to inport some people from China or but it there. We'll design it, China will built it.

Basic metalworking and woodworking should be considered part of a well rounded education.

Fascinating. I graduated from Clifton High in 1987. I design digital electronics for astronomical instrumentation. I am just now getting into amateur liquid rocketry, and I have just purchased a mill and lathe! They better not throw away everything! Or, better yet, too bad I can't make the surplus sale.

Sigh!

Hot Air - The cause of global warming, especially during election years! We need the balloons to "export" some of that hot air. That may be the only export the U.S. has now. :-)

Al

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wmbjkREMOVE snipped-for-privacy@citl> Didn't know that hot-air balloon design was on anybody's class

Well, I guess that after the "Hindenburg" disaster (that was in NJ wasn't it?) there was a ballooning (sorry for the pun) interest in hot air models. Sur[prises me though that it took to long to take off. :-))

Mike in BC

NJ has a lot of hot-air ballooning, in Hunterdon County, but my guess is that they're using it to teach some principles of engineering, or maybe CAD.

It sounds like an interesting program. With the way jobs are going, you can't do any worse than to abandon machining, anyway.

Ed Huntress

And those making those types of decisions probably really think they are being sensible. More evidence that common sense does not exist in some.

mj

In whom? How are job prospects looking for machinists these days, hmm?

Ed Huntress

It's hard to disagree with that, but then... the hands-on skills learned in shop class might end up being more important to getting ahead than learning a trade. A kid who's a whiz at CAD is going to be competing for a job with another whiz from India. Then when his toilet float needs replacing, he'll need to pay a plumber $90 per hour to fix it. Seems to me that most everyone would be better off with some hands-on skills to help keep their cost of living tolerable. The trend to specialists may not be new, but it's sad to see it get to the point where kids' only exposure to tools are Bob Villa's spaced-out zombie Sears commercials.

Wayne

I agree, but the program, as described, is a hands-on program. It's "technologist"-oriented rather than manufacturing-oriented. It sounds to me like a feeder for the "technology" programs that community colleges run these days, which I've disparagingly and somewhat unfairly called "engineering lite" in the past. For example, Statics and the Strength of Materials, without calculus. This program that Clifton (I think?) is setting up sounds like it's trying to interest kids who fill the myriad of specialized tech- and service jobs that industry requires today.

At least, it sounds like that on the surface. I've sat in on the curriculum meetings in my local school district and I can imagine the dilemma they're facing. I haven't heard any good answers to it yet and I wish I did: what to do with ambitious kids who don't want the academic/college track, but who do need advanced training in tasks that can be quite demanding.

But I ask people in our industry this question, often: If your kids want to learn machining or some other manufacturing trade, and they ask you how the future looks, what are you going to tell them?

Ed Huntress

"ATP" wrote in

(SNIP)

This started in the UK they are frightened of being sued if a kid hurts itself on their machines

"Technology Systems" the hands on work is build a hot air baloon - heres a plastic garbage bag - make it fly! and rocketry - here's a PET bottle, pump some air into it and see what happens! bridge design

- heres some spaghetti build a bridge with it, and the simple robotics

- hey kid you like motorised leggo. While you're at it take some pictures and put them on a web page (good marketable skills).

If you're a shop teacher you're told "look outside the square" and "you'll have to improve your teaching methods", and if you ask for a CIM centre so you can teach modern manufacturing "sorry we've spent the money on computers, do a simulation".

Bottom line is that they know all the jobs are going to Asia and the only skills one will need are the "being nice to the Asian tourists" skills.

Meanwhile they moan about "boys education" how can we motivate boys?

Glenn

I don't see how we can have power tools in a classroom anymore. Every blue fingernail probably requires a report and a legal consultation. But I can't imagine raw recruits for service jobs who've gone 18 years without ever having the opportunity to start a machine with the key still in the chuck either. Maybe every student should have a laptop and a 3in1 delivered to his home the first day of school. First homework assignment: a Power Point presentation on why you should turn the machine off before changing belt speeds.

Even the academic types could use some hands-on training. I think that if more people knew how to change a flat, fewer people would believe all the nonsense that's puking out of web sites these days. It used to be that morons had to fumble around to find others of like mind. Now they get together spreading ignoramusnous faster than it can be countered by Myth Busters even it was on 24-7.

Here's what I'd tell them - Shoot for a broad skill set, because it's tough to predict where there might be a possibility of a good salary, or even a job. Choose hobbies that increase your stock of useful knowledge instead of wasting your time watching reality TV shows or gabbing about celebrities. Be prepared to remake yourself to fit what's available. Learn to change your own fan belt, because you might not be able to afford to pay someone else to do it. Quit eating crap, you aren't going to be able to afford diabetes treatment no matter how inviting Wilfred makes it look. Don't buy lottery tickets. And above all, you can't catch a cold by going out in the cold dammit!

Wayne (guidance councilor at Rant-on HS)

Hmm. Auction????

Jim

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Hot Air balloon design...now there is a curriculum for the future....

Gunner

"To be civilized is to restrain the ability to commit mayhem. To be incapable of committing mayhem is not the mark of the civilized, merely the domesticated." - Trefor Thomas

I'm pretty busy at the moment. As far as job prospects, it won't matter if there are no people that are capable of working with their hands. That does not mean using a mouse and a keyboard. With no "industrial arts" type programs in place, what will there be to make the seeds sprout? Manufacturing Sims 1A?

mj

The job prospects for machinists are about the same as for hot air balloon designers.

Regards,

Marv

Ed Huntress wrote:

SNIP