Classes This Spring

The new semester starts Monday.  I've got until then to get four courses configured.  This coming semester I am teaching (again):

• Basic PTM
• Scenic Fabrication & Installation
• Entertainment Rigging
• Studiocraft AutoCAD

I think that this is maybe the 8th time through the first two classes, something like the 6th for the rigging class, and a whopping 14th time through the CAD class.

By Monday I need completed syllabi for the first two classes.  I have until Friday for the second two.  I think the Scenofab syllabus will be complete but I am dubious about the BPTM edition.  Basic PTM has something on the order of 14 guest spots and over the years it has become more and more difficult to pin those dates down before the semester actually begins; so for that class I think the written part of the syllabus will be done, but the schedule will be a mass of TBDs.  This is compounded this semester because for at least 7 of the sessions I not only need to find a date but I actually need to find someone to appear.

The Entertainment Rigging syllabus will also probably come with a bunch of TDBs on the schedule.  In this case it is built that way.  The class content is composed of student presentations.  The students pick a pool of topics which are then assigned to them randomly (although after the assignments are made they are allowed to trade) and then once the students have their topics they pick the presentation dates they want (theoretically based on the demands of their schedules).  Usually it works out that I do the early sessions and they sort of fill in from the end of the semester forward.

I could probably do a CAD syllabus with one hand tied behind my back while blindfolded.  There's good and bad parts to that.  Biggest issue there is not being stale.  Lately the class has been more difficult for me than the kids.  Every time AutoDesk revises the program and the interface they seem to make it more intuitive - so easier for the kids to pick up (since they don't know the legacy interface) and more difficult for me to learn - old dog new tricks.  I have a grad assistant that wants to teach this class this round.  That's not hard to say yes to.

Be nice if I could crank through this paperwork tomorrow.  Watch this space to find if I managed it.

Fuzz Factor

Let's just pretend it is still Tuesday.

So I have this side gig.  A drafting job I probably shouldn't have taken, but for someone I had tried to get to hire me previously - so it's not like I could really say no.  As it turns out, it gave me a chance to learn something new about AutoCAD.

Every now and then in class I will tell people that if they think there's something the program should do or a command they think it should have they should just try it because even if the thing isn't in the menus often there will be a procedure.  In the middle of what was shaping up to be a very long, tedious, iterative process I decided that they must have made the program able to deal with the problem I was having even though from my training I would have said it couldn't.  So instead of going through a tracing job piece by piece for the second time I just cut to the end and windowed everything and kinda just said "do it, ok?"

Instead of coming up with an error or doing something totally different than what I was hoping for it prompted me for a "fuzz factor."

The problem I was having was that several things I needed to join together into a single entity weren't quite touching.  In the world I grew up with that meant going through the thing and reconnecting all the vertices.  On this job we're talking hundreds of interfaces.  But someone must have had this problem before and complained loudly enough that they fixed it because now I can set a threshold - say 0.125" and the machine treats everything that comes within an eighth of an inch as touching.

Go ahead three spaces.

After that there were just two more steps to the finish.  Probably saved me an hour, maybe two, and they were middle of the night hours.

For a few years now I've been saying it might be time for me to retrain on CAD as if I didn't know anything.  This project didn't do anything to dissuade me.  One more thing for the "to do" list.

And Another Dino Install

So my Tech Direction 3 class is at it again.  We picked up a third installation for the Dinosaur pieces we built earlier in the semester.  First stop was the Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire.  Next up was about a month in our lobby at the Purnell Center (someday I'll get some photos of that up).  While the large Steg was in the lobby my boss suggested he thought they'd look good on the green roof of the adjacent building.  So I send an email to someone else who sends an email and lickedy-split we're loading in onto the roof of a building.

Today we had three goals.

1. Don't kill anyone.
2. Don't wreck someone else's building.
3. Set up a nice display.

On the one side the drop was only about 12 feet.  On the other side...

... just a little bit more.

We brought our Stegosaurus.  For this piece its the third exhibition.

We also used the Parasaurolophus.  This piece has been sitting out back of our building since Maker Faire waiting for another showing.

All in all the call went very well; maybe a trip or two more back to the shop than I would prefer, but on the plus side it wasn't raining.

This is the first extended exterior showing for the large pieces.  I've had smaller ones outside for a long time, but not the big ones.  Also, these are different from the ones I've had in my yard because they aren't from the exterior plywood.  Before we took these out we put on a coat of deck seal, but a little bit I'm not overly confident that they will hold up in the weather.  Just going to have to see.  Also the wind is a little bit freaking me out, so we ran a safety cable through every piece on each model.  Plus we tied the units down to the roof with additional cables.

If you'd like in on the Dino Failure Pool, shoot me an email.

The most surprising part of the whole thing for me was how small these things look in this setting.  They could be double their size and still compose.  As is they almost disappear.  Who knew?

They still do look pretty cool though.

And Another

StudiocraftS11

I CAN HAS DYNASAAR - 2008

So the Dinosaur Workshop is over and a great time was had by all.

We had 10 students and 2 prekie assistants this year and we spread the workshop over a night and a class period the next day. Then it was going so well we took it on the road for another class period and most of the afternoon and evening. It was all that and a bag of chips.

If the *festival project* and *knot dating* were the signature pieces of my early teaching and the *critical path/Rube Goldberg* and the *John Henry* projects are the signature of my current teaching, the *Dinosaur Workshop* is definitely my Pre-College signature piece. This is the second year we've done it. Last year we barely finished two pieces. This year with some excellent drawing revisions we managed to complete seven pieces and add one as big as it can be version.

We'd done the T-Rex, Trike, Spino, and Steg before:

This year we added a brachiasaur, in the same scale:

and somewhat larger:

The somewhat larger version is roughly 17' long and 12' tall. Last year when I did this I got featured on Toolmonger.com and they posited "How big can he go?" This was their answer. The largest piece in this model is sized to be as big as it can be on a 4x8 sheet of plywood without having to add any seams. The whole model takes seven sheets of plywood, and this variety of puzzle actually has about 1/3 less pieces than the ones we drafted last year.

The scale is too big. The neck is too slender to support the head of the model, so in the end we had to add a cheater bar - we clamped on a piece of 1" box steel. If we do another one, we'll probably double up the thickness of several of the more load bearing pieces. Although this thing would hold itself standing it was decidedly wambly. Going to 1.5" on the spine, hips, shoulders, and legs would probably solve that issue, although clamping on a piece of 1x didn't so maybe it would need to be even beefier.

After lunch we cleaned up the shop and moved outside (cue the legions of slaves - nothing gets it done like the legions):

I thought the kids would have fun taking their small pieces around campus and shooting odd photos. A couple did, but mostly they just collapsed and soaked up the sun. So we wound up with a fairly nice display. First we did the "Mother and Children" picture:

and then something with a little conflict:

and then a great big family photo:

It turned into a little bit of a happening. People were stopping by and snapping a lot of photos. I heard many things like "That is awesome" and one "Why does CMU have to be so cool?" A bunch of Drama faculty saw it and I even had a brief conversation with the Provost - as well as many less distinguished viewers. Probably the neatest group was the pre-school daycare kids who were just amazed at the whole thing, and who amazed me by knowing the names of all the dinosaurs. It was so popular among passers by that I decided to leave it up after the end of class at 3:30 until 6:00 and then at 6:00 to leave it until 7:30; and while we were striking it at 7:30ish someone showed up and asked "Where are all the dinosaurs? I came back from home to take pictures." There were also quite a few "I wonder if this will be up through Monday?" murmurs along the way.

Probably the highlight of my day though was mid-day at the end of the session when I hear "Best, Class, Ever!" from one of my students. Nice to hit the target once in a while.

More pics...




Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Know What This Means?

7/31/2008

David Asks

Anyone use something like this for CAD? I keep thinking that there ought to be a modified keyboard or mouse that might make things cooler, but aside from the odd trackball user I haven't found anyone using anything all that innovative.

Have you?