foolfillment: the blog

This year at Ross High we’re hoping our Higher Graphics Class will be producing some really cool stuff for their Thematic Presentations (a folio of different types of graphic work based around a single artefact) with a suggested theme of Lego toys. To get them started I’ve modelled a wee man with the intention that they can use him in their own work - with modifications of course.

For the course they will need to do a series of manual and computer generated drawings. One way of doing the computer drawings is to actually model the object in 3D like I’ve done above then get very accurate and detailed drawings generated from that. I’ve used Autodesk Inventor but if you want a shot of doing something similar yourself then Google Sketchup is a free programme that does similar things and comes highly recommended for all abilities.

What you see above is me just going that little bit further so that the class can see what is possible outwith the requirements of the course, animations are a fantastic way of really showing off a piece of work and can be quite good fun to make - unfortunately they aren’t currently assessed/assessable.

This example needs a lot of tidying up, but it is just a little bit of fun and (I think) quite cute.

Incidentally this took me around 2 hours to model and a further 1 at most to set up and tweak the animation. The bit that took the time was rendering the animation, around 450 frames, which took about 60 minutes for 30s of animation.

You might see a theme developing here, I’m basically just asking for people to give me lots of their ideas, under the guise of sharing good practice Today’s theme is how to set up a classroom.

In August I will have the amazing luxury of having my very own classroom, this is something that is almost unheard of for a Tech teacher, and as such it is not something I’ve given much thought to. Since getting the Hawick post I’ve been thinking a little about what I could do to the layout of desks, or what resources I should have out - that sort of thing. Having never had my own room before though I’ve never been through all the practicalities of it and I’m sure I’ll have forgotten or overlooked important things.

So, I’m asking those of you out there who may have something to say to say it. If you were starting from scratch in a new room what 5 things would you do?