Shop Class Progress Report - 12/08/04

A progress report from shop class in middle school.

When I first entered Mr. Zaboth’s Tech-ed class, he handed out our safety contracts and passed out our red technology folders for these nine weeks. The assignment involving the contracts was to take them home to our mom and dad for them to sign for a grade. If I were to bring the contract signed the next day, then I would have an A. So I brought it back and got my first A in this room. I knew that I would do a good job in Mr. Zaboth’s class.

 

            My second day there we all watched a presentation video on technology. I took as many notes as possible just in case I forgot something important. After that   

we reviewed how to measure on a ruler. I learned that you must always put inch marks near the measurement of the ruler and to reduce the fraction to its lowest terms if possible. So we took a quiz on this material some time after. Of course I was one of many that got an A since I sort of already learned this kind of thing last year in this class.

 

             Away from all the simple things, we moved to the real big project. The creation of our pinewood derby gravity cars was our main goal. The first step in designing these wooden cars was to draw the side and top view on a sheet of paper. A title to these cars was optional. I named mine The Big Blue Bolt. After we drew them on paper, we lined up 3/8 of an inch near the bottom of the car to mark where our wheels were going to be located. That was the end of designing our gravity cars. 

 

            We were finally handed our blocks of wood that needed cutting. So we traced the designs onto the wood and used the awl to mark where the wheels were going to be located. Soon after, we learned how to use the drill press to drill holes on our wheel marks. I drilled my holes and got an A for being able to see daylight through them. Before the class started cutting, we had to draw relief lines on our wood to cut with the band saw. After that was done, Mr. Zaboth gave a demonstration on filing. Once I got done cutting, I used the file to smooth out my car’s rough edges. Of course the class’s cars weren’t super smooth, so we all used sandpaper to really smoothen them out. My car was looking beautiful.

 

            My car’s weight was a total of 218 grams, which isn’t that heavy. So I went to my house to get three AA batteries to drill in. Once I drilled in holes for the batteries, I inserted them, filled up the holes with wood filling, and got a total of 298 grams! But what slowed me down was an absence of two days on account of the flu. So Mr. Zaboth was nice enough to put a primer coat of paint on my car. Now I’ll be able to spray paint my car and win the race at the same time. And that’s what we did in Mr. Zaboth’s Tech-Ed class.