Friday 15 June 2007

Fine Weather for Ducks-ford

I had a really good time at the engineering day. As ever, I was the least qualified and most ignorant helper there, but from blog to blag is an easy step and, whilst I told the fellow-helpers on my task the situation, I fooled most of the students all of the time, I think. They were an enjoyable bunch, and less hard work than the younger ones I've been with on previous years. Aged about 12-14, they were old enough to be relied on to understand what you wanted them to do, while being not too old to accept a bossy woman telling them and teasing just a little when it was evident that they hadn't actually read the instruction sheet before going ahead with the task.

The structures were made from tightly rolled tubes of A3 acetate sheets bolted together, first into triangles, then into either 3D pentagons or 2D hexagons, then joined to make the structure, which was about 2 metres across. Good Friend took a photo - if he sends it to me, I'll post it (hint, hint, angel ;-D). At one point, I went to a group who had wound masking tape round one tube which was already fastened with clear sticky tape. "Why did you do just one like that?" I asked. "It's not necessary." They looked at each other and hesitated ... "that was the one our teacher did." "Ah." I added a few sympathetic words about putting up with teachers, which I'd better not repeat as some of my best friends are teachers.

Afterwards, GF and I wandered around Duxford for a while, until rain threatened, when we drove home. It had poured when we left home and some of the fields were flooded. More rain is forecast for the weekend, but I hope it's dry tomorrow as there's a wedding at the village church in the afternoon.

3 comments:

dharmabum said...

so u're a bossy one, eh z? ;)

dharmabum said...

oh, and teachers are painful. mostly. i can count the few teachers that i could identify with.

Z said...

I can adopt an authoritative manner when required, Dharmabum, but I'm sweet and biddable normally, of course.

You can learn a lot about a school by being with its pupils for an hour or two, and about a teacher within five minutes. Sometimes less...