What next?
Both schools are repeating the unit with minor changes. Steve plans to simplify the unit a little and make it more efficient by streamlining the construction methods used: "Maybe instead of cutting and welding, we might use pipe benders a bit more – things like that."
He also may steer away from using aluminium, because of its expense, and make more use of laminated wood. "I think we could do a whole class of laminated timber luges. We ended up with three this year and they looked really nice and were a lot softer ride, which the boys really liked."
Steve is keen to push the functionality of the designs. Speed is an obvious measure to gauge progress.
He also plans use his first generation luge builders to mentor his next class. "We had material suppliers in to talk to us, but there are no local luge experts, although the boys did talk to people overseas on the internet. But next year I've now got a bank of local experts – and that's my Year 12s, who can come in and talk to my Year 11s. They're the closest I can get to local experts."
And he intends to pay more attention to how his students follow-up on their modelling and testing. "We need to make sure that we stick with the decisions that we make. Some students did all the wheel testing, but for their final product, they'd just put on the wheels they had at hand. The ones that won the race had used the wheels they had identified in the first place. That's where my 'excellences' came from – the ones that have stuck with the decisions that they've made."
While he was happy enough with the development work that was done, Steve says he intends to align next year's development work more closely withthe NCEA evidence requirements. He's wary, though, of falling into the trap of teaching for qualifications rather than for learning. He's keen to keep the boys discovering things for themselves and making their own decisions rather than teaching by rote and providing all the answers.
Michael believes he has the materials/ construction side of the unit under control, but would like to fine-tune the process of documentation. He had to continually prompt some students to document their work with the workshop digital camera.
"I'm concentrating on getting the students to specify every bit of research they do and document any changes they make. They should record every single thing they do. My aim is to lift my 'merits' to 'excellences'."
Michael also plans on making good more of external experts in the unit.
"The unit is fairly open-ended," Michael says. "If it begins to pall, it could be easily freshened up by changing the focus slightly: instead of building luges to race on a prepared track, they could be designed and built to race over hillsides and farmtracks for example."
At present though, there doesn't seem to be much danger of students losing interest. Michael says the Year 10 students followed the progress of the Year 11 students very closely and started work on their own luges at the beginning of their Year 11, full of ideas and enthusiasm.
