Based on the huge amount of traffic this forum gets, there are a lot of people with free time as we approach kickoff. Discussing nuances of the placement of Bill Miller's punctuation marks might be entertaining for a couple of minutes, but I think there are generally more interesting uses of your time.
I stumbled upon this great series of youtube videos by a retired high school shop teacher from Illinois, and in them he covers just about every facet of good old fashioned machine tools that there is. It covers from the very basic like which way you want your lathe to spin to foundries and casting. Some of it is very FIRST applicable, some of it not so much but still pretty darn interesting.
The index is here.
You can scroll through for particular videos, or start at the top. Of particular interest, down at the very bottom of the page is a series of 10 videos where he walks through building a double acting Wobbler steam engine from the foundry all the way until it's finished and working.
The videos are all about 10 minutes but he has a knack for explaining, all of the explanations are like all the ones from the old machinists -- they just make sense.
You will find friends among all FIRST students who will become very good friends of yours, will care and help you with anything that you need help with. This is my personal opinion, If you are hooked, dont ever let it go. - Arefin Bari [more] 
04-01-2012, 15:54
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