Project Lead The Way!

[Andy Baker]

Originally posted by monsieurcoffee
My opinion still stands that the course is not a worthwhile pursuit for anyone doing robotics (considering how motivated and dedicated you have to be to work hard for 6 weeks) but may be for some people who have no engineering experience.

We're gonna have to agree to disagree on this point. For my experience, I think that it is worthwhile.

This program has spread like wildfire across the nation over the past 3-4 years. This is no mistake. It may not be optimal for all students, but it is an excellent program for many, many students who are interested in engineering and/or on robotics teams.

Andy B.

[GregTheGreat]

Originally posted by Andy Baker
We're gonna have to agree to disagree on this point. For my experience, I think that it is worthwhile.

This program has spread like wildfire across the nation over the past 3-4 years. This is no mistake. It may not be optimal for all students, but it is an excellent program for many, many students who are interested in engineering and/or on robotics teams.

Andy B.

I agree totally. I believe it is an excellent program for students that are interested in some type of engineering degree.

[Ashley Weed]

I can't really speak for the experience of the students who have taken it.. since I come from depths of 'rural Ameirca'. However, some of my fellow teammates come in from a shool in New York State, and they aren't necissarily a significant contribution, however it is noticeable that they tend to grasp engineering concepts a bit better than the students without the classes from PLTW.
For me, I would be more than greatful to have ANY type of technical/technology class even offered to me. The extent that my school offers is a general introduction to Physics applications, and an introductory drafting course. (NOT CAD, drafting.. with paper and a pencil)

[link871]

Well i've never heard of it. In me school (west islip n.y.) they offer many tech course our newest (starting this year) is called principle of engnieering or POE. POE is going to be the beginners look at all different types of engineering. Which is run by the lead robotics teacher. Our other tech courses consist of Autodesk inventor (CAD) Cisco1,2,3,and 4. Design, Drawing, and production (DDP). There are a whole bunch more but this is all i can think about right now.

[Adam Y.]

POE is going to be the beginners look at all different types of engineering. Which is run by the lead robotics teacher.

Actually that is part of New York states curriculum. My adviser also was trying to get that course. Too bad about the whole budget fiasco. It sounds like it would have been a good course. Im really not sure if my school does this but from what I am reading it really does not matter. My school offers all of the above courses and more.
Lets see:
CAD
DDP
Technical Drawing
Electronics
Communcation Systems
There is a lot more but that is all I can think of.

[dez250]

lol POE is actually a PLTW class, it was started in the early 90's (pretty sure then) at Shen in Clifton Park. And NYS has tried to start a tech cerriculum but really hasnt, they mainly have adopted the PLTW courses and used them cause they started in the capital region of NYS.
~Mike

[Katie Reynolds]

Like Chelly said, our Tesla Engineering Charter School (TECS) will be adopting the PLTW curriculum for the 2003-2004 school year. Even though we will only get the first year of the course, we are still taking it as it seems a worthwhile program. Chelly and I are the student representatives on the TECS board and because of that, we have had a good look at videos, brochures, etc. Everyone involved in TECS, (students, teachers and otherwise) is looking forward to using PLTW! We'll let you know how it goes for us after this next school year.

- Katie

[Adam Y.]

lol POE is actually a PLTW class, it was started in the early 90's (pretty sure then) at Shen in Clifton Park. And NYS has tried to start a tech cerriculum but really hasnt, they mainly have adopted the PLTW courses and used them cause they started in the capital region of NYS.

Meh I was only going by what my advisor showed me. He showed me a giant book and said it was the state's curriculum. My school probably has a pretty large amount of courses to choose from. Im trying to remeber how many courses we have.

[GregT]

Don't listen to yan. I find his attitude towards teaching him self funny, expecially since he took a java course.

His perception is of a program with a serious lack of teachers and administrative support. One teacher can not (and should not be expected to) teach 5 completely unique courses.

This program is important. There are a large number of people who enter a engineering field thinking it sounds interesting only to find that it's nothing like they expected. They then soon realize that their 5 ap math credits didn't properly prepare them for the college ciriculum they now find themselves taking. This leads to the type of Engineer that has machinists try and hurt him/her.

A very important thing people interested in Engineering need to realize is that you can't learn everything from a textbook. I've seen yan try and take a half inch pass with a large endmill through aluminum. It consisted of:

Force endmill a mm forward.
Wait for smoke to stop.
Spray with oil.
Continue until aluninum is melted to endmill.
Clean endmill with centerpunch and hammer.
Continue.

The point is experience counts. Experience is one of the things that all the PLTW courses give you.

If nothing else, they look great on a college (and job) application and sound very impressive in college essays. Learning to operate a CNC mill is something typically done in the third or fourth year in most college ciriculum, I learned how to operate a CNC mill my thrid year in high school.

I took all 5 courses and found each very useful.

Greg

Oh, yan. Really think you know how to use Inventor? I'll send you a part to draw sometime.

[Yan Wang]

"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.

[Adam Y.]

Learning to operate a CNC mill is something typically done in the third or fourth year in most college curriculum, I learned how to operate a CNC mill my thrid year in high school. This discussion reminds me of something I need to do. I must find the custodian that knows how to operate a CNC mill.

Meh I'll just read the book and build my own mill. I almost picked it up yesterday but I ended up getting some other books.

"One teacher can not (and should not be expected to) teach 5 completely unique courses."

The one thing that is good about my school is the ample amount of teachers and the good selection of courses. Thank god the budget passed.

They then soon realize that their 5 ap math credits didn't properly prepare them for the college ciriculum they now find themselves taking.

I took honors pre-calculus math this year and we used a fairly decent textbook. Almost all of the word problems we did had a real world purpose to them. It was really annoying having a word problem on something that quite a few of us did in another class a few weeks ago. Then again it did help that my math teacher was a former engineer. My physics teacher too but that really did not help since he got a degree in mining engineering.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Project Lead The Way is slowly getting bigger every year in our school. This coming year we'll have an Inventor course offered, and I'm sure more courses are coming in the future. PLTW is in no way "worthless". Even if your school's program may not be up to your standards, I guarantee at least a few people will benefit from it.

Thumbs up to PLTW

[dez250]

OK well since I'm bored now i pulled my P.O.E. notebook out from this past school year and got out one of the homework sheets we have, this one being on thermodynamics. The following was the second of 8 questions, which get much harder as they go on, this is a simple single equations question, which my brother just went through in his junior year of college for mechanical engineering at Clarkson University in the class, Fundamentals of heat and mass transfer. The problem is copied as follows:

2.) A wall is made of an outer brick (R=0.3ft[^2]*hr*[degree]F/BTU), a piece of plywood (R=1), 6” of insulation (R=25), an air gap (R=4), and drywall (R=0.5).
Calculate the coefficient of thermal conductivity.

now i am wondering if anyone that says that P.L.T.W. is not worth the time, can answer that question on their own without looking to the web for help.

~Mike

P.S.--> Also this problem is expected to be done in a time frame of 3-5 minuets at max.

[Stefan]

Our county is supposed to start that up next year at one of our HS's... though not mine.

[dez250]

its been great hearing all your comments, keep them coming!
~Mike