3D Printer

I expect delivery of a 3D Printer in August, 2020; officially described as: Artillery®Sidewinder X1 3D Printer 300 × 300 × 400mm print size support for resume printing [after power loss] filament run-out detection quiet operation  Reviews are good and YouTube videos impressive; filament spools are available in different...Read more

CNC Router

Moving forward, it’s time to figure out how to purposefully use a CNC router. There is no room at home for this so I’ll deploy this at the school (though I do retain ownership rights). After doing some research this is the one I selected. Made in China, reviews of...Read more

Robot First Aid Day – with Celt-X (FRC 5406)

Many thanks to the Celt-X for their hospitality on Sunday, March 1, 2020 – they hosted a first aid day to help First Robotics teams with ailing robots. Ours was a controller problem with the Spark MAX controllers (we have not used them before) and we were able to get this...Read more

Dr. Woodie Flowers Explains Creativity, Engineering and FirstRobotics

Dr Woodie Flowers is a long-time champion of FirstRobotics and gracious professionalism. Here he provides an interesting and succinct summary of what FirstRobotics is all about — essentially building character, leadership, communication skills and STEAM competencies in all participants, whether youth team member, adult mentor or volunteer. So, why not...Read more

21st Century Skills

I include the following sentence in my personal statement on Instructional Leadership: Acknowledging that today’s learners are different from previous cohorts, I accept the challenge to collaboratively prepare them for a future that, today, we cannot clearly describe. Many of the jobs that current high school students will have in...Read more

Robotics and Best Practices

Today a group from First Robotics Canada, Six Nations Polytechnic STEAM Academy and the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board met to move FRC7509’s strategy forward for the 2019-2020 academic year. The meeting was productive and gave me both a lot to reflect on and to do. Chris Mara’s name came up...Read more