Pictured Above: Students and their adult mentor, Ron Grosinger, from Memorial High School in West New York, NJ, are recognized at the DASH+ launch event on October 19, 2009.At Memorial High School in West New York, New Jersey, we are no strangers to pressure. In addition to competing in the DASH+ contest, we have the added pressure of having an electric car to refine, a ground-up race car to build, an electric bicycle and a bike generator to complete. Last year, five students and I dedicated 700 after school hours to building an electric car in four months. That small team has evolved into a daytime class with 16 students, and we can’t afford to just simply spend more hours of work on one project, as this would take time away from our other projects.
To solve this I have decided to go back to basic fundamentals. Fundamentals say that you must look at what you have and not at what you don’t have. In that mindset, we have spent the first half of the school year learning science and building projects. We have learned about how chemical energy is converted into mechanical energy, how batteries work and how all of this relates to the environment. Rather than look at how little time is left before the March 1 contest submission deadline, I have instead looked at how to integrate DASH+ into all of our other projects. This way we can move forward with all projects while involving more students. However, that is easier said than done. As I can’t just tell the students that we are integrating DASH+ into what we are doing, I use fundamental lessons to accomplish this.
For instance, the drawing of the dashboard design and placement of gauges can relate to our other project, the ground-up race car. This way if I do a lesson on concept sketch drawing, the race car team can benefit. I have used the DASH+ Webinar “Dashboard Design: From Concept to Reality” to inspire and teach about one point perspective drawings. I also plan to hold a fundamental introductory lesson on drafting by using a CAD program. This will cover any measurement the dashboard layout blueprints may need as well as training for our bicycle generator project, where students are drafting and building a metal bracket that attaches a car alternator to a bicycle wheel to produce power.
To solve this I have decided to go back to basic fundamentals. Fundamentals say that you must look at what you have and not at what you don’t have. In that mindset, we have spent the first half of the school year learning science and building projects. We have learned about how chemical energy is converted into mechanical energy, how batteries work and how all of this relates to the environment. Rather than look at how little time is left before the March 1 contest submission deadline, I have instead looked at how to integrate DASH+ into all of our other projects. This way we can move forward with all projects while involving more students. However, that is easier said than done. As I can’t just tell the students that we are integrating DASH+ into what we are doing, I use fundamental lessons to accomplish this.
For instance, the drawing of the dashboard design and placement of gauges can relate to our other project, the ground-up race car. This way if I do a lesson on concept sketch drawing, the race car team can benefit. I have used the DASH+ Webinar “Dashboard Design: From Concept to Reality” to inspire and teach about one point perspective drawings. I also plan to hold a fundamental introductory lesson on drafting by using a CAD program. This will cover any measurement the dashboard layout blueprints may need as well as training for our bicycle generator project, where students are drafting and building a metal bracket that attaches a car alternator to a bicycle wheel to produce power.
Moving forward, there is a balance of time to maintain: fundamental time vs. project time. I will distribute that time as I see fit and let you know how we are doing in a future blog entry. Well that’s it for now. Thank you to the DASH+ team and good luck to all of those competing!
--Ron Grosinger, Technology Education, Memorial High School
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