Graphics, Eddie showed us one way of creating animations in Inventor which was different from the way I had found myself. Then an afternoon of design, our radio (most of it anyway) got put in the rapid prototyper and should finish in the middle of thie night, I’m going inearly to get started in the tricky job of removing the scaffolding that get’s built around it, then Materials and Processes - the last lecture.
Cardonald, finished my dwang, then in the afternnoon started a chess board which should be finidhed next week. Pub quiz in the evening, could really have done without it, lots still to do.
Design design design design assessment design design design energy design design design…….
Uni life’s a bit hectic at the moment, the brightest part of it at the moment is a series of lectures by Al McPhee on aspects of the Scottish education system, one of which we had today, the content is a dry as a bone but it’s presented very well. We also had a short session on Higher Product Design, and one of the last lectures on Understanding Energy. Energy has really picked up in the last few weeks, but that doesn’t really say much. The classes are much more geared towards the exam at the moment and are really large group tutorials.
I wrote up my logbook for coleee tonight, tomorrow might be the last time I go, depending how far I get with my dwang tomorrow.
I was walking home tonight from a lecture when a collection of police motorbikes came rolling down University Avenue and stopped the traffic at the junction with Kelvin Way, where I was about to cross. Well, it was starting to rain and I didn’t have a jacket with me so I did what any loyal citizen would do and scampered across the road just before the three fancy cars with expensive plates drove along it.
Anyway, it was her what watches the rugby on her way from opening a couple of new buildings behind the medical building.
A post post, I’m writing up my logbook for Cardonald at the moment (I know, I should have done it as I went along…) and it’s pretty useful to jump back into what I’ve written here to see what I’ve done over the year, the disheartening thing is that in college it has been remarkably little. However, I digress:
Metalwork in the morning, a slow morning as we have become accustomed to, this three week block is pencilled in for us making our models for the design course, as Gail and I are using the rapic prototyper we don’t actually need to be in. I started my dwang (great word, that) and should hopefully get it finished tomorrow.
In woodwork I did absolutely nothing, the bench saw was out of action which meant the whole machine shop was offline, which inturn meant there was no way of us getting timber stripped to work on, maybe next time - oh, hang on, there is no next time! A mile stone has passed without us even noticing, we have now completed any training we will have in craft skills, the next time we might be trained in something to do with craft we will be NQTs or older. I digress again, logbook logbook logbook.
I went to the pub last night. In a year’s time I’ll be about to graduate, as will Morven. We’ll know where I’m going to be teaching for the next year, Morven will be be looking for a job in the same area. Andy and Kat, who we were at the pub with will have vastly different prospects, but equally undefined. Andy will have another 4 - at least - years of uni, while Kat will be somewhere - Lossimouth? - far away from Glasgow in the RAF. Sobering prospects.
Anyway, today I wrestled with an essay that’s due on Friday, I just couldn’t get it out and I’m dtill not happy with it but I don’t know if I’m able to get it any better without doing a complete rewrite which I don’t have time for. On the other side of things though, Inventor is doing all the hard work for me at the moment regards design. If only I’d been introduced to it earlier I could have had all this done much sooner. This week we should be ready to put our files into the rapid prototyper and set it loose on a big part of our final grade. Neil and Krysia got their’s done last Friday which was pretty exciting, it’ll be good to see how it looks tomorrow.
Aside from working today I’ve managed to distract myself with a number of little projects revolving around flickr, in particular I liked this silly little idea while I was busy not typing up my most profound thoughts about formative assessment, and before I even got started today I went for a walk in search of something interesting to photograph, I’m not sure how interesting they are, but it was a reasonable little walk.
This is the first example of what I’ve been using Inventor for. I’m still a little unsure how to use all of the studio effects so this isn;t as fancy as it might look.
No more Technology and Society lectures anymore but I did manage to go in and complete the next handin for Graphics before the Graphics session and get a whole lot done with Inventor to take the Design project forward, then the Design workshop - our files fit with the rapid prototyper so we should be ready to run it next week sometime. Lots to do in other parts of the project though. The deadlines for my work are looming so the next two weeks or so will be pretty busy, there’s one essay on Assessment Theory I just can’t get started with.
Well having used it for only a few hours today and an hour last week I can already say I can do more complicated, impressive drawings with Inventor than ProDesktop. What’s more is it is so intuitive to use that I can’t wait to use it with classes - by all acounts there are copies of the software scattered in schools just lying unused because the teachers don’t know where to start. Lots to do though so that’s all for now.
Despite the best intentions for tonight I’ve wasted most of it. I acquired a copy of Inventor recently which will come in handy for work but getting it installed has been nothing but hassle, every time I tried I got a Fatal error 0×7927e03e and it failed, then the debugger failed. There wasn’m much coming up from google but eventually I narrowed it down to a problem with .net framework 1.1, this in itself shouldn’t have been a problem but uninstalling that didn’t happen easily, eventually I (fingers crossed - it’s still installing) got things to work using a couple of tools then reinstalling, I’m not sure which worked, but so far things seem to be working. This post is in the spirit of helping others who got the same error message but unfortunately I don’t have any definitive advice.
Now for the rest of the night, some pottering about with Inventor (if it installs properly) then Grand Designs, which is the programme of choice at the moment with some essay writing in the background.
