Centroids help

Getting ready for the centroids quiz tomorrow?
These videos might help.

• Pics of a worked example from some after school help
• VIDEO: Simple shapes - basics
• VIDEO: Complex shape - worked example

Windafred comes out on top!

Congratulations to WINDAFRED, the wind turbine that generated the highest voltage, 4.89 volts!
The competition was tougher this year with three teams making strong showings.

1. Windafred - 4.89 volts
2. Windmill Awesome - 4.44 volts
3. Double Whammy - 3.70 volts

All 6 teams were able to generate a voltage and should be proud of their work.  Check out the playlist to see the other wind turbines.  Students will be adding their own explanations of their turbines soon.

Windafred out front!

Watch "POE Wind Turbine - Windafred" on YouTube
We have 4 more turbines to test; the voltage to beat is 4.89 volts!

The first generator

Watch "World's First Electric Generator" on YouTube

Effective Brainstorming

An interesting take on brainstorming.

Circuit Videos for HW

You should have already watched the two videos covering the PLTW Powerpoint:

• Video - Voltage, Current, & Resistance
• Video - Series & Parallel Circuits

Now we need to flex some Ohm's Law muscle and complete Activity 1.2.3 Circuit Simulation

You're homework tonight is to watch these two videos from Khan Academy:

• Video - Resistors in Series
• Video - Resistors in Parallel

Then you can move on to Activity 1.2.4 Circuit Calculations

Updated Grades & Essential Qs for +5%

Grades Updated

I just finished grading the tests and posted the grades online.  This test updated all four standards in lesson 1.1:

• 1.1A Simple Machine attributes
• 1.1B Problem Solving Communication
• 1.1C Mechanical Advantage and Efficiency
• 1.1D Gears, Pulley Drives, & Sprockets

Essential Qs +5%

In order to make it possible to receive 100% in each standard individually, you will be asked to answer 3-5 essential questions.  Each Essential Question test is on Its Learning.  You have the potential to earn anywhere from 0-5% above and beyond whatever grade you currently have in that standard.  For example,

• Sally earned a 95 on the standard, and +4 on the essential questions, so she gets a 99
• Jimmy earned a 75 on the standard, but received +5 on the essential questions, so he gets an 80

To keep track of these, I have created separate extra credit assignments for each standard.  That allows me to report the grade you received on the original quiz, and add the essential questions score separately.  I ask that everyone complete these tests on Its Learning.  They can only improve your grade, and it is important to take a step back from all the calculation to put these concepts in context and remind ourselves why we are studying them.

Progress Reports....Tuesday!

1/8 of the year has been completed!
That's right, it is progress report time.  I'm working fervidly to finish grading the test we just took.  As soon as that is completed, I will blog again so you can get a more accurate feel for your grade in the course.

Have a great weekend!

Powerful Statement

Medway High School Faculty & Staff: Powerful statement: Very impressed with this video - each time I watch parts of it, I become more taken with her amazing poise:

Professional Interview

Who to Interview?

Post your interviewee to the Interview Discussion Forum along with their contact information, degree (if you know it), job title, and company.  Enough to give us a sense of who this person is and what they do in case we'd like to make some contacts down the road.  If you are interviewing a family member and would rather refrain from posting contact info, feel free to leave that out.  

If you are still looking for an architect, quality control engineer, mechanical engineer working with CAT, or environmental engineer, let me know.  You don't leave a huge engineering school without a few engineering friends.

Try to contact them soon, so they have enough time to respond, and you have enough time to write your reflection.

Compound Machine Project (...and circuits)

Compound Machine Project

Simple Machines rarely exist in isolation; any combination becomes a compound machine and their mechanical advantages are multiplied.

TASK:  Students will create a compound machine consisting of at least 3 simple machines that will lift/pull a weight with the greatest overall mechanical advantage and efficiency.

Students have 3 class days to accomplish the task:

1. Brainstorm
2. Build
3. Test/Modify
4. Performance & Reflection

A rubric and teammate evaluation will be posted soon.  Let the games begin!

Meanwhile...circuits videos

Homework for the next several days will be to watch the circuits videos provided on Its Learning, and be ready to start the circuits activity when the compound machine design is finished.  This is our first step toward a flipped classroom: short videos introducing concepts and examples at home, activities and what would traditionally be homework in school.

Next up, CIRCUITS!

What do you remember about electricity and circuits?

Homework:

Create a concept map of all the terms you remember relating to circuits or electricity.

• How are the terms related?
• How should they be grouped?
• How are they connected?

After creating the concept map, watch the videos posted on Its Learning about:

• Voltage, Current, & Resistance
• Series & Parallel Circuits

​If you find better videos through Khan Academy or PhysicsClassroom.com, feel free to use them to refresh yourself.

come back Friday ready to dive in to circuits!

1 quiz next week, Tuesday

We have two quizzes coming up next week:

• Gears, Pulleys, Sprockets (2nd and final)
• Simple Machines (3rd and final)

The simple machines one will test mechanical advantage, efficiency, and the descriptions and attributes of the simple machines with a focus on types of levers.

I did not hand back your 1st gear quiz, that was my fault, so we will not quiz on Monday.  I need to return those first before I give you a second.  It's only fair that you should see what you did the first time so you may improve.  Tuesday we will do both quizzes.  Take advantage of the PPTs on Its Learning, and activities 1.1.2 and 1.1.5 for practice problems and answer keys.

Enjoy your weekend!

Quiz Postponed

After the events of the day, I'm moving the simple machines and gears quiz to Monday.  Enjoy your night off!

Gears and Pulleys and Sprockets, OH MY!

Here's a look ahead this week:
Tuesday:

• Present compound gear trains
• Continue to work on Activity 1.1.3 Gears

Wednesday

• Quiz:  Gears, Standards 1.1D, 1.1B
• Activity 1.1.4 Pulley Drives & Sprockets

Thursday

• Activity 1.1.5 Gears & Pulley Drives Practice Problems
• Flavors of Engineering
• Professional Interview

Friday

• QUIZ:  Simple Machines & Gears/Pulleys/Sprockets
• 1.1A - Simple Machine Attributes & Descriptions
• 1.1B - Problem Solving Communication (show your work)
• 1.1C - Mechanical Advantage & Efficiency
• 1.1D - Gear Trains, Pulley Drives, Chain & Sprockets
• Flavors of Engineering
• Professional Interview

Open House

Thursday is the annual open house, and I hope to meet many of you parents.  In case you want a preview of what to expect, or if you can't make it, here's the Prezi I made for the night.  As always, if you have any questions, please email me.  See you tomorrow!

• Syllabus
• Why Standards Based Grading?
• Unit 1 Standards

POE Open House on Prezi

Simple Machines MA

Quiz tomorrow!  You will need to find the IMA and AMA for each type of simple machine.
Here's a Prezi with a quick review of MA for each simple machine.  IMA is always De / Dr and AMA is always Fr / Fe, but locating those on each type of machine can become tricky.

HERE'S A VIDEO OF THE PREZI EMBEDDED BELOW

Lesson 1.1 Summary - Simple Machines on Prezi

Standards Based Grading

a.k.a. Why do I only have a 75% right now?

Most of the grade this year will be calculated based on our understanding and skills of specific standards for each quarter.  That understanding will grow throughout the quarter, and the grades should reflect that.  If a student improves his or her understanding of some material, their grade should rise as well.  To do that, we will take multiple quizzes on the same standard, and students will have opportunities to reassess as necessary.  Today we took our first quiz on one of the standards we have this year about mechanical advantage.  True standards based grading would only use levels to indicate achievement: 4, 3, 2, 1.  Our grading system eventually needs to be converted into a percentage, so I've adapted it slightly:

• 4 - 95% - all ADVANCED material
• 3 - 85% - some ADVANCED material
• 2 - 75% - all BASIC material
• 1 - 65% - some BASIC material
• 0 - 50% - no BASIC material

But how do I get 100%?  If you reach 95% on each standard for the quarter, I will happily bump that to 100%.  Some initial quizzes will contain BASIC material at first before we have dealt with any advanced material.  Today's quiz covered BASIC information, so students have the opportunity to demonstrate that they are currently at a level 2, or 75%.  We will have another quiz once we have worked through more advanced material, and at that time this grade will (hopefully!) be replaced with something higher.  Only the most current grade counts as it represents your most current level of understanding.

In summary, if you got a 75%, great job!  That is the highest you can get right now on this standard!  We'll soon have another quiz on more advanced material.  Its a little different, but once we get used to it, I'm hoping it will better represent and motivate you to understand the material, not just get the grade.

CLICK HERE for more details about standards-based grading.

As always, feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Homework: Tuesday, 9-4

• Email me: jjasinski@medway.k12.ma.us   Use an email address you will check because this is how I may contact you..
• Log in to Its Learning
• go to https://medway.itslearning.com/
• Username: whatever it was last year for the computers
• Password:  what it was for the computers  -or-  "password"  -or-  "Password"  -or-  "password1"
• You only get 3 tries, so type carefully.  After that the account is locked and you must go to the office and let them know.  If you have any issues, let the office know, they can reset and/or create new accounts.
• Watch 2 videos on Its Learning
• Mechanical Advantage (MA) video
• 1 simple machine video (whichever one you started working on)
• If you have It's Learning issues, email me directly and I will send you the link.  I can't make it public because a proprietary curriculum.

Welcome to POE!

Welcome parents, students, the Medway community, random blog searchers who stumbled across this to the MEDWAY POE BLOG!  I can't wait to get started! There is a lot to talk about, but we'll just start with the basics.

THIS BLOG
This blog will serve as a window for parents and the community to know what is going on here in Principles of Engineering (POE). Students will participate in keeping it up to date. We will also utilize It's Learning, a more comprehesive class website, but more on that later. If you have a Google account, feel free to follow; I suggest you at least subscribe to this blog by entering your email at the right, or by using any of the other subscribe services provided.

WHAT DO I NEED?
We will deal with the syllabus soon enough, but if you're going shopping tonight, this course requires the usual suspects.  I will be providing you with an engineering notebook.  In addition to that, you will need:

• scientific calculator
• writing utensils
• something to organize papers (binder or folder)

I leave the details up to you. Some people like to keep a notebook and a folder; others would rather keep a binder with loose leaf paper and 3 hole punch everything. Use whatever organizational strategies best suit you.
More info to come!  I'm looking forward to a great year!

Today we built marshmallow towers.  Why did we build marshmallow towers?  We'll discuss this more tomorrow, but for now, please watch the following video of Tom Wujec doing a TED Talk about the Marshmallow Challenge.  Think about how these ideas relate to your class, your education, your life.

(Click here if the video does not show up)