Week of Feb 18

It is that time of year again - when students begin making choices about classes for next year.  For one thing, if you are planning to take the next engineering elective, know that we will be offering Aerospace Engineering next year.  The RRISD academy model requires that you take IED, PoE and DE, specifically and may take the specialization electives above and beyond that.  Those electives are currently Civil Engineering & Architecture and - now - Aerospace Engineering.  The plan is that we will alternate AE with CEA every other year.  Both of those are showing up on your course selection sheet for 2013-2014.  For now, I would expect that AE will be offered in 2013 and again in 2015.  If you are a sophomore and planning on AE, you should make room in your schedule next year in case it is not offered in 2014.  Freshmen will have plenty of time to take AE in a future year and should definitely take PoE for next year.  If you have any questions about the course sequence, please don't hesitate to ask me.

CEA will continue beam design this week.  You will include the deflection calculations in the process, which will show you that the first beam selected is inadequate in some cases.  The assignment is a bit tedious, but you will know how to make those calculations when it is all over!  :-)

This is the start of a new six weeks.  The year is already 2/3 over and going fast!  Look for report cards to come home late this week.  Also, I graded journals for the six weeks.  If you did not leave yours at school, make sure to do so tomorrow so that I can grade it before grades are finally due.

Parents, we have a student teacher for this semester.  Mr. John Peterson has been with us for a month now and has already been teaching CEA.  He will take on more of the planning and grading responsibilities for my classes for the next couple of months.  You can still contact me if you have any questions, but I wanted you to meet Mr. Peterson because he has been doing a great job for RRHS engineering.