Welcome back from the break!

Welcome back.  I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving break.  It is hard to believe that we are just 3 weeks away from the semester break.  The year, as usual, is slipping by very quickly. 

We have about another week plus of work, and then we will be preparing for and taking semester final exams.  We are currently learning about different types of holes (tapped holes, countersinks, counterbores, etc.)  I know that most people think a hole is a hole, but to engineers, nothing is that simple.  The main thing at this point is to get the vocabulary down so that we can communicate more succinctly about different options in our designs.  We also have a few more tricks to learn regarding modelling parts with Inventor, and then I will spend about a day with a brief review of material for the semester final. 

For IED, no students will be allowed to exempt the spring exam.  PLTW requires that we give each student an End of Course (EoC) exam, which will be given during the spring final exams.  For that reason, exemptions will not be given for engineering courses in the spring, and you should exempt the fall exam if you wish to do so at all. 

The details can be found in the RRISD Student Handook (excerpted here).  Basically, sophomores, juniors, and seniors can exempt up to three exams each semester provided that you were not counted as absent three or more times for that particular class.   Remember that three tardies count as one absence in all classes.  The grade requirement is an 85 or better for the semester.  I will sign anyone's forms for exempting who has an 88 or better for the semester.  If your grade is less than 82, you will likely not be able to raise your semester grade enough to meet the 85 standard this late in the semester.  Between 82 and 88, I would need to look at on an individual basis and, possibly, grade outstanding assignments before making the determination.  Listen to the announcements to find out when and where to pick up the forms as well as when the forms are due back to the office signed by any teachers whose class you wish to exempt.

Freshmen Career Fair

For Freshmen Only!

RRISD is hosting a freshmen Career Fair this Friday (November 18) at the Round Rock Higher Education Center on University Boulevard.  Freshmen can learn about various careers, the academy structure at RRHS, and how we can help them explore and better prepare for those careers.

There will be a breakout session (break out by academy) as well as time to explore a vendor area where potential employers can answer specific questions for our students.  The bus will from RRHS in the morning and return to school in time for the lunch periods. 

Any student who is interested in attending but has not registered may do so by having parents fill out and sign these two permission forms and returning to Jill Bunnell in the 9th grade office (700 building).  The seats are limited, so remaining slots are being given out on a first come-first served basis.  Let me know if you have any questions. 

November 14

There has been a lot of discussion and changes around the grading system used at RRHS.  Since IED is a project-based course, I will continue using a 1-4 grading system and grading rubrics for projects and parts of projects.  This fits much better for the types of assignments that we do than the more traditional system.  The "product" that students produce lends itself better to grading on rubrics than a standard %correct.  Our curriculum (Project Lead the Way) provides rubrics for many of the assignments students are given.  Please let me know if you have any questions about this or any concerns on your grades.

This week, we will continue working on advanced sketching and modeling skills in Inventor.  We will use Inventor for projects throughout the remainder of the year, so it is important to understand how the software works and the many options that you have for accomplishing any particular task. 

Speaking of Inventor, the license purchased for us to use at school allows students to download and use an educational version at home.  You have access to this at home to keep up or catch up on work from school, which helps to mitigate the limited access to the software at school.  Click this link to download Inventor.  You will need to enter some registration information, including an email address.  Please fill it out correctly, as Autodesk will send information to you that is necessary to complete installation.  Also, make sure to choose Inventor Professional 2011.  Any other version will leave you unable to share files between school and home.  Finally, expect this to take from 3 to 10 hours, depending on your computer and internet connection speed.  This isn't necessary as students have access to the computers in my room during tutorial hours.  Many like to have access to the software at home as well.