Week of October 22

All of the shed designs should be complete, now.  We will work on estimating the cost of building materials this week and then look at analyzing the heat transfer through walls.  Ever wonder how home designers determine what type and size of air conditioner unit to put in a house?  This is where you will find out.  Make sure that you leave your journals in class this week, so that I can complete a journal check for you before grades are due next Tuesday.

Don't forget that Friday is a pep rally, and Thursday is a late start.  Consult the RRHS main web page for the bell schedules on those days.

This is also the last week of the mid-six weeks progress reporting period.  All work needs to be done and turned in by Friday so that we can finalize grades early next week.  Progress reports will be sent out next Friday (November 2).

Money for College  
Be sure to keep up with the Scholarship Page that I have tabbed at the top of this page.  I will drop scholarship opportunities there as I find out about them.  The latest is Milwaukee School of Engineering.  They offer scholarships for students who have successfully completed one or more Project Lead the Way class.  If you are in our engineering program, want to major in engineering in college, and need more help than you are getting from A&M or Texas, MSOE might be worth looking in to for you with up to $12,000 in scholarships provided.  I will update it from time to time with others as they come available.

Week of October 9

This week, we will continue work on the shed design in Revit.  We will also create a sample roof model to illustrate the different styles of roofs in different house designs.  Plan to be completed with your shed design by the end of class on Thursday.  Note the specific drawings that are required in the activity.

The school license with Autodesk allows students to download a copy of Revit for use at home for educational purposes.  If you wish to download the software to enhance your learning or to enable yourself to complete assignments at home, go to the Autodesk student web site to download it.  The download is quite large and will take some time, and you will have to provide an email for registration purposes.  Be sure that you download the correct version - Revit Architecture 2012 as other versions may not be compatible with the files that you create at school.

Don't forget that Monday is a holiday.

Samsung Field Trip
For those going on the Samsung field trip on Tuesday, be at my room (601) at 8:45.  We will meet there so that you can leave any items that you don't need with you in the storage room.  Samsung does not allow any type of electronic devices (including phones, MP3 players, cameras, and USB drives or storage cards) in their facility.  It would be best for you to leave them at home or with a friend on Tuesday.  The bus will be unattended and unlocked in Samsung's parking lot and may not be secure for you to leave valuable items.  The bus needs to leave at 9:00 because Samsung wants to start at 9:45.  In addition to the travel time, it will take 10 or so minutes to get everyone signed in through security.  We should return to the school between 2:00 and 2:30, so you will be back for the start of 8th period.

FADE Starts Wednesday
For those who signed up for the Future Aggies Design Exhibition, the kick-off is Wednesday.  Meet in my room after school, and I should by then have the design task that we are asked to perform.  I am excited about this because we ended up with 18 students registered which gave us 3 teams of six future engineers each.  You can keep up to date with the information as it is released by the Texas A&M Student Engineering Council at their web site.

PSAT October 17
Juniors and Seniors will take the PSAT test during the morning class periods next Wednesday (Oct 17).  Freshman and sophomores are still expected to be at school and will have classes planned for them.  When all have finished testing, we will continue with the regular 7th & 8th period schedules for the afternoon, so there will be no CEA class that day.