maritime skills
The ‘Maritime Skills’ Program was developed between the Apprenticeshop and Regional School Unit 13. Students came to the shop twice a week as part of the alternative education program of Oceanside High School. I was part of designing the curriculum for the program, which included science, woodworking, metalworking, seamanship and team-building skills and co-taught the class. The students learned how to tie knots, handle boats, use both hand and power tools, make orthographic drawings, work well together and be kind to one-another.
PROJECTS
SPOONS
This was the first making assignment. After having covered how to define a 3D object through multiple 2D drawings of the object’s different views, the students were called upon to come up with their own spoon design. This required them to lay out the different spoon views on a spoon blank and then cut them out using a bandsaw. After that, they were introduced to hand tools such as a gouge and a spokeshave to start shaping their spoon.
Photographs by Erin Tokarz
SANTA’S WORKSHOP
In the classes leading up to winder break, the students were asked to use the skills that they had learned so far to design and build a gift for themselves or someone dear to them. This was a great opportunity for them to be creative and start understanding the different, fun and experimental ways in which they could use the skills they were learning.
Photographs by Erin Tokarz
TOBOGGANS
For this assignment, we built two toboggans which we then raced at the National Toboggan Championship. This project introduced a lot of new techniques such as steam-bending and riveting. The students also dove into the physics of static and kinetic friction; needless to say, they sanded the bottoms of their toboggans until you could see their reflections in the wood. The gratification of being able to create something from scratch and then be able to use it, let alone race it, made this project a crowd favorite!
Photographs by Erin Tokarz
MOUSE-TRAP CARS
Assignments with a competitive flair always got the student’s creative juices flowing. For this specific one, they had to design a car using a mouse-trap as the only source of motive power. The winning car would be the one that could cover the longest distance.
Photographs by Erin Tokarz
FINAL PROJECT
SEA ROCKET
For the final project, we worked on building two Sea Rockets, in partnership with Ocean explorer and submersible inventor Graham Hawkes. These Sea Rockets were designed to collect underwater footage and are a way making ocean exploration more universally accessible.
We received the plans for all the parts which the students had to then fabricate and assemble. The Rocket was designed such that a sandbag would submerge it all the way to the ocean floor, at which point a spring-activated mechanism would release the bag and the Rocket would re-surface because of the floatation assembly on the Rocket’s shaft.
Photographs by Erin Tokarz
This project required a lot of precision, since all the parts of the submersible were carefully engineered to fit together, as well as have a specific weight and buoyancy. The students were of course able to rise to the challenge. They were taught how to precisely lay out their pieces based on a set of plans, how to use the wood and metal lathe, the oxyacetylene torch and a finger brake. This was also a great opportunity for them to be introduced to basic navigation techniques using dividers and parallel rules. This came in handy when we were doing sea trials. We were able to take the Sea Rockets out on multiple occasions and were able to collect footage from multiple different locations.
Photographs by Erin Tokarz