Posts Tagged design
Practical Craft Skills, 27 August 2010
Posted by Jim Black in Practical Craft Skills on August 28, 2010
These photos were taken by Dom Okigbo and James Lowe during a Friday double block. Daniel and Darren were absent from class.
This session, for the first time, we have two senior Practical Craft Skills classes, being taken by Mr Allan and myself. Currently, there are twenty-eight pupils on the course, down from a starting figure of thirty-four, as pupils have left school or re-coursed.
This session, I hope to make time to submit bowl and cook book stand projects to SQA for pre-verification. Together, they will replace the standard course project covering machining. I also hope to submit an Intermediate 1 level wind chime, as a final project. I’ll post examples here in due course.
You’ll see examples of Practical Craft Skills work from previous years over at our main departmental web site.
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.
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.Class 1C Wind Chimes
Posted by Callum McNie in Wind Chimes on November 29, 2009
Over the course of a few weeks, 1C have been in the workshop with Mr Black designing wind chimes.
We started by sketching ideas into our folios and then cutting them from small blocks of wood with various saws. Then, having sanded down the edges, we drilled three holes in our chosen spots. We then cut strips of aluminium into separate chime bars.
Attached is a slideshow with several pupils hard at work…
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.S3 Sand Moulding Demo
Posted by Kennedy Adamson in Sand Moulding, craftanddesign on November 21, 2009
On Friday 20th one of Mr. Black’s 3rd year classes was taught how to make their sand moulded bases for the rocking toy. Here is the link to see last year’s rocking toys :
http://www.royalhigh.edin.sch.uk/departments/departments/CDT/scd_0809_rocking_toys.html
This demonstration took our whole block. Starting from next Friday, pairs will be beginning to make their own sand moulded bases, starting with myself & Emma. For the demonstration, Hugh & Rory did all the steps while Mr. Black told them what to do. During this time Ritchie and I were taking photos for the website.
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.Creative Use of Resources
Posted by Krysia Smyth in Lego Mindstorms on November 7, 2009
Computer cables trailing through a doorway?
Creative use of resources
Often, we find it difficult to arrange access to computers for lessons.
Here is a novel solution adopted a few days ago by one of the teams in class 2f, while working on their Lego Mindstorms robot.
Jim
Technical Drawing
Posted by Jim Black in technical drawing on October 19, 2009
Technical drawing in progress in Mrs Hislop's Higher Graphics class
Some of the girls in Mrs Hislop's Higher Graphics class
Higher Graphics interpenetration orthographic
We currently run Graphic Communication at Standard, Higher and Advanced Higher grades, and traditional technical drawing is still a major part of these courses.
With the new ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ subjects beginning to be rolled out over the next few years, will SQA use the reorganisation to reduce or completely remove technical drawing from the courses on offer? Just how useful is the skill out in industry? There’s no doubt that doing technical drawing helps pupils learn to read orthographic layouts, and I expect that reading drawings is a useful skill out in industry. However, interpreting drawings could be learned without actually drawing with a pencil and instruments. Additionally, industries are moving towards a workflow that goes direct to 3D CAD design, cutting out the need for ortho drawings / printed drawings.
A reduction in the time spent on technical drawing would allow time for pupils to learn such skills as:
Animation; 3D graphics for video games and product simulations; web design; 3D CAD for CAM; video recording, editing and compositing; more in-depth DTP and illustration skills.
We’re dabbling in most of the above skills, but as things stand there are limited opportunities to tie some of them in to SQA graphics courses, to allow pupils to gain credit for their work. In some cases we’re interpreting the current arrangements documents in unusual ways to do so.
Jim
Myrna MacLeod, Napier University Graphics Tutor
Posted by Jim Black in Guest Speakers on October 3, 2009
Myrna discussing her students' booklet designs.
Myrna is the lead tutor on the BDes(Hons) Graphic Design course at Napier University. She visited us on 01 October to deliver a presentation about the course.
Myrna brought along lots of work by current students on the course, including display boards and booklets. She also made use of students’ portfolio sites and blogs to show off their work.
Some of the key / interesting pieces of information she divulged:
- The number of applicants versus number of places is rising each year and is currently around 10:1. The figure will probably continue to rise.
- A good pass at Higher Art & Design is the most important entry qualification for those applying direct from school. Higher Graphic Communication is not a requirement.
- The course includes a fair amount of theory / essay writing, and applicants require to have a ‘C’ pass at Higher English. The requirement may rise to a ‘B’ pass in future.
- This year’s first year intake was thirty-two, up from twenty-four last year.
- Students are worked very hard, with demanding deadlines and high standards. The course is not suitable for those who aren’t committed to design.
- First year is a common course with other design degree courses such as product design. Specialisation commences in second year.
- Although students learn a wide range of technologies, drawing and the ability to draw, remains at the heart of the course.
- Currently, the availability and relative inexpense of ‘on-demand’ printing has made the production of booklets and books a popular presentation format.
- Post cards are another popular presentation format at present on the course.
- Students are required to create and maintain portfolio web sites and blogs.
- The course includes overseas placements at partner universities. Current third year students will soon be off to cities in Canada, Israel, France and USA, among others.
Jim
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