Congratulations DE Students!

Congratulations!  When I realized what was happening, I couldn't contain my excitement.  As you should know, you may become eligible for credit through the Rochester Institute of Technology, the University of Texas at Tyler and other universities for PLTW courses taken in high school, including IED, PoE, DE, and CEA.

Everyone who has taken the EoC passed the exam.  Even more! 24 of our 28 DE students scored a 6 or better out of 9 on the exam, which qualifies for this college credit.  That means that all of our DE students performed significantly better than the national average on this exam.  That is a great reward for all of  your hard work this year, and I am so proud of each one of you.

Letters will go out in the next two weeks to those of you who qualified, and it will outline the process for application of credit.  You would have to pay (usually $200) to the crediting university, and there will be a deadline to make the application.  Credit is not an automatic thing.  Feel free to ask me if I can help with any additional questions.  I will recommend that you check with universities that you plan to attend (or apply) to see how they will handle such credits before you pay out the money for it.

Once again.  Congratulations and thank you for all of the hard work this year. Have a great summer.

Last Post for the Year!

We are now at the end of the 2013-2014 school year.  I say this every year, but it has gone by fast.

As I have said previously, the EoC for all engineering classes is required per our contract with PLTW.  You will not be eligible to exempt.  However, I am moving it up to this Thursday and Friday.  You should finish your review before Thursday so that you are well prepared.

• You will be given a formula packet (9 pages) that has any formulas that you need on it.  It covers all of the engineering courses that we offer, so much of it is not applicable to DE.  However, it does have Ohm's law and Kirchoff's laws, the SI prefixes (milli, kilo, etc.) and other things that may be helpful.
• Beyond formulas, you are allowed one 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper with notes and information that you have handwritten on one side.  We gave out some 1/2 sheets of pink paper that you may use to put your notes on both sides of it.  I would not waste any space on formulas because of the point above.  
• The test is in two parts, each with a 40 minute time limit, and both parts are 100% computer-based. There is no written portion or Inventor example to do.  
• The test will be used as our final exam, and it is what qualifies you for college credit through Rochester Institute of Technology, the University of Texas at Tyler, and other colleges.  
• You will also get transcripted credit through ACC that will be available to you whenever you register for your first class at ACC.  It is automatic. There is nothing that you need to do other than take classes at ACC.  

Week of May 6

For the next 2 weeks, several to many students will be missing from any given class due to  AP testing.  This last unit, the Boe-Bot, is one that you can work self-paced.  The manual is posted in Moodle, and you can work through the various exercises when you are in class and not worry about it when you are testing.  We will culminate it with a task to be performed, such as an obstacle course your robot must navigate.

We don't have very much new material left in this year.  It has certainly gone fast.  Two weeks from now, we will start thinking about preparing for the final exams, and then finals are May 28-31.  The final for DE is the End of Course exam that is required by Project Lead the Way for all students.  There will be no exemptions for exams in engineering for the spring semester.  

The good news, however, is that if you do well in the course and the exam, you will get a letter from me over the summer stating that you have earned the right to get college credit through Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Texas at Tyler, or Texas A&M-Kingsville.  In some cases, those credits can be transferred to another school as a transfer credit.  Check with whichever school you may be interested in applying to see how they will handle it.  You would have to pay the school that is granting you the credit, so you need to decide if it is worth it or not for you.  All students who make an 85 in DE for the year will receive articulated credit through ACC, which doesn't cost you anything at all.  

The final exam schedule has been released. Be sure to clear up all obligations and get your exemption forms turned in by the deadlines.

Finally, we will be starting an engineering club at RRHS next fall.  Five of our current students attended a summit with the other RRISD schools last week and are anxious to begin working on it.  If you are interested, let me know so that we can notify you right at the start of school (if not before) next year to get it moving quickly.  

I am finished with morning duty for the year, so I should be available most mornings and afternoons through the remainder of the year.  Also, the last Late Start and WOW for this year will be May 22 & 23, so the schedule for the next 2 weeks should be normal.

If you are interested in the Aerospace class that we will have next year, I started the blog for it already.  Yeah.  I'm a little excited about that one.  :-)  I will post updates over the summer for those who signed up to take the class next year.