Ooooooooo, the Claw!

I've gone back to work early. About a week early. Started Monday, and became so overwhelmed that I only stayed a few hours, just long enough to push some furniture around. Yesterday I came in at 8:30 and stayed til 3:30. I was productive for all 7 hours. I ate a granola bar for lunch while I was going through files for CTE Careers. I'm back again today, but I just got so excited I had to take a break and share what I've been doing.

This here is a "robot hand." I learned how to make it at a Nerd Convention (Tech Ed Conference) I went to earlier this summer. I thought it was the coolest project I'd ever done, and I wanted to incorporate it into my CTE curriculum. In the end I decided it was too complicated for CTE and I wasn't sure I had sufficient resources. Yesterday, while trying to decide what hands-on technology project I could do with CTE Careers...I came back to "The Claw." I ran to Lowe's for supplies. Then I spent all this morning perfecting the design for 7th graders. And at last, a working prototype!!


By "working," I mean it can pick up a tennis ball, as shown above. Just in case someone questions me, I have to be able to justify every project and assignment we do. My kids can't make a robot hand that just curls its fingers in a creepy manner, it has DO something. There has to be standard-aligned learning!! Therefore, for the medical tech. portion of the class, we'll talk about prostheses, then design and build prosthetic hands that have to be able to pick up an object and move it. Lots of opportunity for problem solving, use of common sense, and of course they'll get a teensy taste of what biotech. engineers go through trying to simulate the movement and strength of our hands. And then they'll walk out of my class and show their friends what cool and awesome things we do in tech class!! I have a feeling the first round of this project will be utter chaos, but I'm still excited.

I've also been thinking about Halloween decorations. I made a turtle out of a newspaper dome and put it up on my ceiling last year. I have two more big domes, and one very small one. My genius mother said I should make a spider for Halloween. Genius, I tell you. Unfortunately, this project has to go on the back burner until I've got the more important (and less fun tasks) out of the way. Such as wiring my computer lab. Boo Hiss!! I spent a lot of yesterday climbing up a ladder trying to ferret out the dead Ethernet ports on the ceiling. And climbing under desks plugging in cables. This wouldn't be quite so bad if I hadn't started exercising again on Monday, after an 8 month sabbatical. Everything hurts! I'll never get out of shape again!!

I have until Aug. 26 to finish getting ready. I still have a lot to do. But I'm excited, so it's okay. I'm determined that it's going to be a great year.