Posts Tagged cdt
More Pastel Drawings
Posted by Jim Black in Advanced Higher Graphics on August 4, 2010
I produced these drawings while preparing for the new session, when pupils in the Advanced Higher Graphics class will be using pastels to produce the ‘visuals’ for their desktop publishing assignments. They’ll also use their pastel drawings to illustrate their final pieces.
Each of the drawings is an exercise from the Pastel Workbook by Jackie Simmonds.
S3 Craft & Design – Rocking Toys
Posted by Jim Black in Rocking Toys on April 30, 2010
Progress photos taken on 30 April 2010 by Kennedy Adamson.
You’ll notice from the photos that the rocking toy incorporates a wide range of materials and processes. This helps reduce bottlenecks during manufacturing, as there are only two wood lathes and two metal lathes in the room. Pupils have access to casting, forging and brazing facilities in an adjacent room, which has a large window to allow supervision. Usually therefore, pupils have a choice of tasks to progress. This does make lessons rather busy for the teacher though, with so many machines and processes running at once.
It may not be evident from the photos that S6 Prefect Andrew Goudie does a lot of work advising and supervising. The S3 pupils call him ‘Chief’. This session he has enabled workshop lessons to proceed particularly smoothly.
Class 1j Building Bookends
Posted by Jim Black in Uncategorized on April 30, 2010
Afton Davidson took this batch of workshop photos on 28 April, while most of her classmates were building bookends.
This is the class’s second practical project. The first was a wind chime.
S1 and S2 Flight Project
This is a project I’ve run with classes of all ages.
When there’s been plenty of time available, I’ve taught a bit about aeronautics, aeroplane control surfaces, the aerofoil cross-section, pitch, yaw and roll. I’ve also covered a bit about the history of manned flight. Pupils have built paper darts and tried to get them to roll, pitch or yaw. They’ve then worked in teams to construct and fly a kite. At other times, the whole project has consisted of only one lesson, when teams of pupils constructed a kite in around half an hour, then flew it in the remaining time.
The photos in this article shows pupils in class 1c constructing their kites and pupils in class 2d flying theirs. I did this project with them as they couldn’t gain access to our workshops, due to S4 Craft & Design classes taking priority.
The kites are usually constructed in teams of three. One pupil follows me step-by-step, constructing the kite, while another makes the tails. The third team member prepares a sheet of thumbnail designs for decorative graphics, for selection by team mates.
The kite design requires a sheet of A3 size paper, some masking tape, double sided tape, and a length of pine, approximately three millimetres square in cross section. The kite design is taken from the book ‘One Hour Kites’ by Jim Rowlands. Usually, provided there’s a breeze, all teams manage to get their kite to fly.
There are examples of kites from previous years on our web site, along with links to a number of resources at -
http://www.royalhigh.edin.sch.uk/departments/departments/CDT/s2%20flight%20project%202001%20pg1.html
Setting Deadlines for Pupil Work
Posted by Jim Black in Advanced Higher Graphics on March 27, 2010
Thursday 18 March was the Advanced Higher Graphics course deadline night, with most pupils working until the janitors threw them out of school at 9-30pm. Mid-evening, pupils phoned out for Chinese take-out, to keep us going. Despite the stress the evening was good fun.
We’ll have another late night on Tuesday 30 March, with Higher Graphics pupils.
At Royal High, school management doesn’t allow us to set ‘hard’ deadlines throughout the year: if pupils don’t bother about a deadline, they’re allowed to submit the work later during the course. The result is that most pupils allow themselves to fall significantly behind with submissions. By March, some still haven’t submitted work that was due in September.
In the past, I’ve asked school management to allow us to insist that if a deadline is missed, then the work may not be put forward to gain course credits – as is the case on design courses at university. I’m sure this would revolutionise pupils’ approach to deadlines, giving them a big incentive to keep up with work. Pupils would be less stressed in the latter stages of the course, and therefore would be less likely to fall ill, wouldn’t have their performance affected in other subjects, and crucially, would have completed asssignments available for the university interview season, which commences in February. With the new management regime here at school, perhaps I’ll resubmit my proposal.
As a reaction to the complete flexibility pupils have over deadlines, and to prevent myself being inundated with requests for support for all course elements in the latter stages of the session, nowadays I set cut-off dates for support in Advanced Higher Graphics. After a certain date, I no longer provide any support or input for a course element. This works for me, allowing me to concentrate on the work in hand. Pupils still have access to the extensive written, on-line and exemplar resources that I’ve put in place. Nevertheless, some do find themselves feeling a bit stranded, if they hit a problem with work that I’m no longer supporting.
How do other CDT departments approach deadlines? Does their school management team allow them to set ‘hard’ deadlines? I’m interested to know.
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.Homework ’submitted’ on iphone
Recently, we’ve encountered pupils ’submitting’ homework on their smart phones.
The photo shows Anna Butchert, class 1e, working on the decorative scheme for a bookend she’s making. She’d been asked to bring in images of cartoon characters to work from.
Anna has used a bit of battery life instead of a sheet of paper and some printer ink.
Shameless Self-Promoters – Business Cards
Posted by Jim Black in Higher Graphics on January 30, 2010
A couple of months ago, former pupil Michael Chalmers visited us to deliver a talk about his film studies and photography – see earlier post at cdtlog. He brought along a pack of business cards he’d had printed by the on-line service Moo.com. Michael said he hadn’t imagined he’d ever need business cards, especially while still studying at art college, however he had in fact found them invaluable.
Suitably inspired, I assembled some examples of work I’d produced over the years to support pupils, and had them applied to a set of cards. A pack of fifty cards cost £12-99 including postage. One side of the card employs one of Moo’s standard templates and includes my contact details, along with the school crest. The other is a full bleed image.
The cards are gorgeous, printed on heavy weight smooth matt stock. The images have turned out a wee bit dark, so if I were to use the service again I’d lighten the colours before uploading. I’d probably also upload my own layout of the contact info, rather than complete one of Moo’s standard templates.
Pupils in our Higher Graphics classes are currently creating suites of business stationery, as part of the ‘display’ element of the Thematic Presentation. They have found the cards of interest and examples of their final work will be posted over at our main departmental site soon.
A couple of days after the cards arrived, our new rector, Mrs Frith, was visiting class and mentioned that until now she simply had business cards printed out in school, but that the Moo.com cards were superior. I suggested that she have a set done at Moo, each with a different piece of pupil work featured on the reverse. If she goes down this route, I’ll ask her if I may feature the resulting cards here.
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.Shameless Self-Promoters – S4 Parents’ Evening
Posted by Jim Black in Parents' Evenings on January 30, 2010
Parents’ Evenings are sales opportunities. We always make the effort to put work on display and, when time allows, discuss it with our customers.
S4 parents’ night is our opportunity to pitch our Higher and Advanced Higher courses. In between appointments, we chat with parents who are waiting to see other teachers in the department. Our display of work helps us engage.
We are shameless self-promoters.
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.Booklet for ‘On Demand Printing’
Posted by Jim Black in on demand printing on December 30, 2009
This session, Higher and Advanced Higher Graphics classes are producing booklets and having them printed and bound by www.blurb.com .
Higher Graphics pupils are creating children’s story books (see earlier post) and Advanced Higher Graphics pupils are assembling portfolio booklets.
To learn about the process, Mr Black has produced a booklet that reviews 2009 in the CDT department. At the time of writing it has been uploaded to Blurb.com for printing. A preview of some of the book’s pages are available to view at Blurb’s site at -
http://www.blurb.com/books/1111890
Dust jacket design for book reviewing 2009 in the CDT department
1E class wind chimes
Posted by Kyle Bowie-MacDonald in Wind Chimes on December 5, 2009
This is 1e class doing our wind chimes,
During our classes, we have been making wind chimes for indoors. I have specifically enjoyed using the machines for cutting the M.D.F., Medium Density Fibreboard.
So far, I have found shaping the chime bars a bit of a challenge. Drawing the fire on my piece of board also proved a bit of a challenge but I got it done in the end. The rest of it was kind of easy to do. The chime bars are made of aluminium, this is a really soft metal to use so you have to be careful with it because you could bend it or scratch.
We are using the theme of the ancient elements fire, water,wind and sun.
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.
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