A student project

[Mayhem]

I love the candle lamps Brian.

[Brian]

Yes Tom it was a problem as it is always you have the workers and the watchers, it's a shame to see the way some find ways of hiding from learning. I often wonder what they think now?
At the end the compensation for finishing the project, was for four of the lads to take the car to the B P build a car competition, Its a three day event, run by B P and the army school of engineering. the rules are simple. Build a car and tell us why you built it. and it will be tested as being suitable for that use.
I always let the lads vote for the team, and strangely it was always the ones I would have chosen to take.
In this case on the last day of the competition (open day for family etc)
the local BMW agent arrived and offered all four lads apprenticeships so it was all worth it.

The lamps Mayhem are another story.
As this class was very open and free flowing. I was asked if I could take a extra ( disadvantaged ) student each year. to help integrate them into learning, This particular young man was slow beyond belief but at the end of the year he had made the lamps, and boy was he proud to see them on the car, I wont tell you the amount of scrap he made in the process, but the end result was fine, I was proud of him.

   

   

   

The end result was that the judges asked if we would mind not being judged against the other entries and be given a special award for excellence in engineering.
The car appeared on the BP stand at the Birmingham motor show and at other BP events.

Brian.

[hermetic]

Hi Brian, Can you tell me where the college was and what year the build happened, I think I recognise one or two of those lads..............maybe.
Phil

[Brian]

Hi Phil
The college was Havering in Essex and the year 1986--1988
total build time 66 days.
Brian.

[hermetic]

Hi Brian, right era, wrong place, I must be mistaken. Fabulous project, and thanks for posting it. The great pity is that most of the colleges like this have fallen prey to the HSE and "performing arts" Ho Hum

[DaveH]

Well done - credit to you Brian

DaveH

[Roadracer_Al]

I think it's a huge pity that we (at least here in the US) don't offer this kind of hands-on education any longer. But, it's our own fault.

When I was in High School (class of 82), my Dad, a multi-disciplinary engineer who was named on 10 patents (yeah, hard act to follow) absolutely blew a gasket when I told him I wanted to take auto shop. I'd have taken machine shop classes, but that had been dismantled ages ago. It was his opinion that shop was where the "intellectually lacking" students went because they weren't cut out for white-collar work.

So, now I taught myself the skills I didn't get in HS, and our auto mechanic (I get immensely frustrated working on cars -- it's as if they were specifically designed to be hard to work on) is Romanian.

[Brian]

I am afraid that this attitude has ruined most of our trade schools.
The workshop you see has been dismantled and the machines sold.
The moment I retired the cars where scraped, During the time that I was running these classes I had great opposition from other staff who could not hack it. to the extent that the students where told " it wont work" even after 10 years and five cars they made the same stupid comments. luckily I had a head of department that thought differently.
Thanks for your interest Brian.

[PixMan]

I'm a "vocational high school" graduate myself, though when I started there it was simply named "Boys Trade High School."

In my case it was ME who decided I didn't like classroom instruction, though I seemed to be pretty good at it. I chose to transfer to the trade school after one month in the "regular" high school.

My attention span was limited, and in today's world I might have been labeled as suffering from "attention deficit disorder". In my day I was just inattentive and disruptive, and disciplined as such. Still got mostly A's and an occasional B grade.

I value that education so highly and only regret not proceeding to college now that I see how a piece of paper gets you leaps in base salary regardless of actually knowing a damned thing.

[Roadracer_Al]

Yep, I can totally relate to the ADD thing. Though, I was the opposite -- shy and a daydreamer. I did go to college, and I actually thrived -- the course material was actually engaging and challenging -- but had some family stuff that was very chaotic, and never finished. I really kick myself for not finishing, and for exactly the same reason you cite.

Throughout my public school education, I got some bad messages from teachers & administrators who didn't read what was causing my challenges correctly. Years of therapy later, I realize I'm not "stupid", rather quite the opposite, and a vocational school would have been a great fit for me.