Author: robert lewis

  • Lot of action today

    Tomorrow (no class) is my next data dump day (after 5PM), so today’s the last full day of instruction for this course. Friday, we will review this week’s homework, and some light instruction and touchups. And next Monday is our last class, when we take the final.

    Today, we will explore the following topics:

    Breakout Geothermal Pump

    Answer Keys

  • Green is Blue in new bottles

    • How many kWh counterclockwise will our ConEd dial turn if we cover our roof with solar panels?
    • How many turns of the valve can we ratchet back boiler burning, if we stick as many geothermal pumps as we can next to it in the basement?
    • How long will it take to recoup our capital investments in retrofitting our house with high R-factor windows?

    These are are but a few of the questions that can be answered, with proper training on green building, and a good blueprint.

    Blueprint Shanty Reports

  • Diolch!

    Heat Transfer (U factor)

    A major part of my professional development has come from kicking back at the end of a work day, and reflecting upon what what went well, and more importantly not, and wonder why.

    My biggest mistake, yesterday, was not saying thank you, (diolch in my native tongue), to those of you who corrected errors in my answer key. We all learned something yesterday.

    Teaching would be an easy career if every day was a Friday. Today, all of the work is on you – here’s the rubric:

    • +/– Feet & Inches (8 questions)
    • Missing Sides/Perimeter (6 questions)
    • Ruler Measurements (8 questions)
    • More/Less Than (8 questions)
    • Nail/Screw (8 questions)
    • Carbon Footprint (8 questions)

    46 Questions

  • Let’s keep it simple today

    1. You’ll look over your assessed homework (except nails & screws)
    2. Into the shanties, to practice nails & screws
    3. Then we’ll revisit the homework
    4. If time permits, we will look at a new topic, that WILL NOT BE on the midterm.

    Note: If you want to resubmit a homework NO PROBLEM.

    answer key

  • No rime this time

    The Maze:

    The Sargasso Sea is a place all captains fear.

    Flouting the pirates’ code, raising the black too soon, is as bad as barnacles on the bow. Floating on a virtual Sargasso Sea for a year, among the flotsam of rotting paper’d lesson plans and worksheets, now, I can tack circles around Big Data, but I try to stay off the radar.

    My traffic always drops from Day 1 to 2 of my online courses, but consider what happened two days ago, and yesterday:

    This is risky, asking you something not about math—what happened yesterday? I felt our class was at least as engaged as Day 1, but metrics strongly diverge from that hypothesis.

    Now, we will huddle in shanties, and wander the maze, reporting out ON TIME. Then, we will examine nail penetration and screw holes.

    UPDATES!

  • Time to get smartly in the shanties!

    Boiler Carbon Footprint:

    Tree Carbon Footprint:

    One of the most important skills you must acquire in the trades is delivering work product in a timely manner. Moving forward, DEADLINES WILL BE STRICTLY ENFORCED.

    So our first item today will be gathering in shanties again, this time working on boiler carbon footprints.

    Then, we will arrive at our first Real Trades Math problems: the “Are You Smarter than 5th Grader” questions, and the kinds of math applied to a construction site.