GTEC

Future Plans

• For the rest of the year, we will complete CREO design of wind turbines with our British partners. The designs will be manufuctured into models by Haywood Engineering College and tested for maximum electrical output.
• In the coming years Spirit of Knowledge Charter School plans to expand the education and use of CREO Elements/Pro as a standard course within their high school curriculum.
• SOKCS will participate in the future GTEC projects including next year's game design program, shown below.

Diversity Training Sessions

As part of our diversity training, we learned about the different communication styles of different people and cultures. Each one of us shared our preferred style.

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About the Schools

Below, you see a small group collaboration over Skype.

Above, you can see the large group communication also over Skype.

Haywood Engineering School

• Equivalent of a middle school & a high school in the US
• Focus on engineering
• Accepts students from all ethnic backgrounds and with different learning abilities
• Has partnerships with 7 other schools
• Ages range from 11 to 16 years old

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GTEC Pilot Program at SOKCS

Engineering: Wind Turbines

We illustrated the importance of communication with the Chinese character 'ting', which literally means 'listening'. The character also shows components of good listening within itself. These components are eyes, ears, heart, and undivided attention.

Creo Designs

To learn CREO, we started with a very simple project: a toy car.

Key Equations

• Kinetic energy = 1/2mv^2 where m is the mass of air and v is the wind velocity
• Mass of air per unit time = density * volume * velocity
• By definition, the mass of air is 1.225 kg / m^3

CAD

Principles of Wind Turbine Design

Working in Small Teams

Recently, we have been working in small groups of 4 - 2 students in the US, 2 from the UK. We use Skype to communicate and share designs and ideas.

• The pitch of the blade is the angle.
• Shallow pitch creates less drag.
• Deep pitch creates more drag.
• If you have high wind, you want to have shallow pitch.
• You do not want to use too many or too few turbine blades.
• Airfoil blades provide the best design for the blades themselves.

Wind Turbine Modeling

The pilot project is focused on green energy – the major theme of the SOKCS curriculum – and involves creating physical and computer models of a wind turbine.

Physical investigations are done using simple turbine models in each school separately (photo on the top shows experiments at SOKCS) and together in the Global classroom environment (photo below shows PTC’s Tim Brotherhood in the UK teaching students via Global CLassroom).

Spirit of Knowledge Charter School

Global Classroom Framework

The Global Classroom is the key, most innovative part of the GTEC program. The framework allows us to communicate closely with the other team - even though we are thousands of miles apart.

• Tuition-free public school in Worcester
• Opened in September 2010 with 156 students in grades 7, 8 and 9; will serve 275 students in grades 7-12.
• Diverse student population: 80% minority and 65% low income students; 60% girls: our student families speak over 20 different languages.
• Focused on achieving proficiency in math, sciences and technology
• A high-standard, innovative curriculum – based on the International model and proved locally
• Extensive use of technology. 1:1 Learning with Technology – every student gets a netbook computer

Student to Student Connection

We weren't always working with two large groups. Often, we would split up into four person teams - two people on each side. We would discuss the project and share ideas over Skype. The picture below shows two students communicating with two students in the UK while sharing models and ideas.

One of the semi-problems we encountered was the accents and slang. In the beginning, we thought it funny when they spoke simply because of the accents. Also, some of the common slang they and we used was very different. We definitely got over it though, and learned to use the differences to our advantages.

Two Continents, One Teacher

One of the key ideas behind the Global Classroom Framework is that there are two groups on two different continents who can learn together as one class from one teacher. The video below shows PTC's Tim Brotherhood teaching from the UK to both the US and the UK team.

Global Classroom & International Collaboration

Partners

We were very lucky to receive donations of computers from Google.

Higher Education Partner: Worcester Polytechnic Institute

A few students and professors helped us with the project:

• Professor Mustapha Fofana (www.me.wpi.edu/People/Fofana), assists the SOKCS faculty by conducting the lecture series to the GTEC students on the topic of physics of wind energy and turbine engineering design. In the left photo: Prof Fofana (second from the right) with PTC representatives Ayora Berrey (far left) and Dmitry Orlov, Dr. Sigalovsky, SOKCS, and Larisa Schelkin, the GTEC Executive Director.
• WPI graduate student Fatima Mancuso (the right photo with Michael Khmelnnitskiy) serves as the leading instructor for the GTEC pilot program and a WPI alumni Samuel LaFleche provides IT support

Newburyport High School

The Newburyport High School (NHS) faculty that is experienced in teaching the CREO/Pro-Engineer program to high school students provided training on the CREO curriculum and instruction to the SOKCS faculty. Pictured on left: Steve Smith and Sarah Leadbeater of NHS leading the training of the SOKCS’s GTEC instructors Fatima Mancuso, Samuel LaFleche and a parent volunteer. In the right photo: Julia Sigalovsky and Michael Khmelnitskiy (on the left) consulting with Steve Smith on the CREO/Pro-E curriculum.

PTC: Parametric Technologies Corporation

PTC is the creator of the CREO Elements/Pro software we used for modeling and simulation. We were trained by representatives of PTC on how to use the CREO software.

Here, Mr. Ayora Berry poses with students after teaching them some of the intermediate topics of CREO.

This video shows Mr. Berry teaching the students.

Spirit of Knowledge Charter School, Worcester & Haywood Engineering School, UK

With support from:

WPI, Worcester; Parametric Technology Corporation, Needham and Manchester UK; Newburyport High School