"One teacher can not (and should not be expected to) teach 5 completely unique courses."
Is that in reference to the fact that our teachers can't teach those courses well? Is one example the fact that you have to teach Mr Peters how to use the CNC?
Though the course content and purpose is good, the course is not being taught well at our school. You yourself spend half your time in the course doing robotics. The other half consists of helping the teacher and part of it is also doing the required work (which you know takes very little time). I mean, the class gives you access to tools and material, but how much have you actually learned from the teacher?
At DeWitt Middle School, the tech program there has gotten better and better. They just came back from the National TSA Competition in Florida and picked up the most trophies of the last 4 years: 3 first places and 7 finalists (our year we had 1 first and 5 finalists and we're just the only little middle school in NYS going)... The tech course at the middle school is a very good intro to engineering/technology and it is REQUIRED. Thus, it gives everyone a better idea of various technical fields and what courses they want to take in the future. I found that to be a better intro to engineering/technology and I think it was a much better course than the PLTW ones at OUR school. Anyhoo, you know what I think about PLTW at our school.
Oh yeah, that Java course was very slow, but the teacher is arguably the best in the state at it and it was a good experience and at least I enjoyed it. Plus, you forget my real motive - suck up to her before I have her very hard calc class next year
Heh, yeah, that milling incident wasn't for any purpose though

That was just me and Alex having fun when we were bored... And btw, no aluminum got melted onto the endmill and there was no use of a hammer - just pretty smoke and lots of oil. very fun though

You should see Nick's aluminum block now... schweet stuff.