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Shoestring Racer

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Brass_Machine:

--- Quote from: vtsteam on November 18, 2013, 09:13:32 AM ---...
I just visited our local elementary school Friday all day long and sat in on classes as a member of the school board of directors. What I saw dismays me.  I feel there is a great lack of manual skill development in our school systems. When I was a kid, probably 90 percent of boys I knew at least were building model airplanes. They could wield a hammer and hand saw, build a tree house or a skooter out of an orange crate and some wheels, etc. Now, children have almost no idea that they can use tools. Everything is a purchase. And I go to a place like Walmart and see no kits of planes or much else that you can build and paint. I see only shiny plastic gadgets.
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--- End quote ---

I share your dismay Steve. My plan is to instill as much as I can into my son. I am trying to involve him as much as I can right now (he is only 5) and want to get him doing more. His big passion is robots, I hope to get him to the point of where he is building everything he possible can for them...

awemawson:
Steve,

Hair dryer and your domestic vacuum cleaner will do the job with the thin plastic that I expect you'll want to use.

Manual skills: It started by manual skills being looked down upon - our children were all encouraged to do 'better than that' and get 'proper qualifications'. At this stage school workshops stopped being properly used and gathered dust. Then along came the Health and Safety brigade, who were horrified that poor little children would be exposed to nasty >>machines<<. Then computers came to the fore - everything had to be on the PC. At this stage school workshops were cleared of all the decent British - German or US machine tools and converted to 'PC Labs' - or even 'PC Workshops' (groan). OK we who appreciated the machinery were very glad of it on the second hand market but it meant that no one was being given a chance to learn practical skills. Now there is a very slight turn around, just a few schools are re-equipping, but of course it is all Chinese machinery - ironic that the original British stuff would still have been sound a decade or two after people lost direction  :bang:

Andrew

John Rudd:
Nice work vt, can't wait to see it fly....  :bow:

millwright:
Enjoying the build forum Steve, never got round to foam for planes all mine were balsa. dabbled with planes contol line and RC then ended up with RC cars in the early 70s racing them then running the car club for 11 yrs. still have Great Planes flight sim 3.5 on the PC just to keep the brain and fingers working. As to Andrews comment about schools over here i spent the last 10 yrs working in schools all over Yorkshire servicing their woodworking and metalworking machinery, lathes and millers very rarely used the majority of teachers had no idea how to use them and i was often asked what they were and what could you do with them some didnt even know what they were called. !!! British Education Once we led the World with our Engineering hmmm. The new Machinery coming into schools is ony to replace the"Old" stuff thats been there years, hence the harrison and boxford lathes and millers are being sold by schools to dealers at rockbottom prices machinery that has hardly been used or ever seen a decent cut being made. then being replaced by Chinese equipment. I know of a least one school where the new lathes have still never been used after 4 yrs the only person to turn them on was me.
Well sorry about that rant and hijacking the thread i got a bit carried away there but it really Pi***s me off.
 John

vtsteam:
No problem gentlemen with your thoughts on education, as far as I'm concerned. I like model planes, but I truly intended this one to try to get people interested in making things. Maybe some kid somewhere will say, I'm going to try that.

But I am going to try to locally get interest up in making things. Not just online in a forum, but here in my town. I'm not sure how to do that, but I will figure out a way. I would like it to evolve upwards towards machining, but start at the simple manual level. Could be a model plane, could be anything.

The amazing thing about those schools getting rid of the machinery, which was hardly used, is that people, when you show them how to use it and let them try something, naturally gravitate towards it. There is usually great interest in making things, whenever you bring someone into it. Crowds gather to watch a person on a wood lathe, or blowing glass, or wielding a blacksmith hammer, if set up where it can be seen outdoors.

It's like we're completely disconnected at school from what people actually like, and find valuable, once they are involved in it.

But they don't know it. They get trapped in thinking they don't know how to make things. That they're all thumbs. Or that only manufacturing plants can make things. Regular people can't make things. That's the thinking.

But they can. We know that. It isn't magic what we do. Just belief that things are do-able. Somewhere along the line in our lives (and many of us are old now) somebody told us we could make things. And showed us how. And let us try. And that started us off.

Well if the conventional schools can't do that, then maybe it's time to form our own schools. To try to pass on what we learned. Which was that we are capable.

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