MVTHS Engineering

Week in Review 2/7 – 2/11

This is the weekly blog post written by Cat Paone ’22. This week I finished creating a chess board. I designed all the different pieces in Fusion360, and then 3D printed the pieces. While printing them there were some sizing issues, but after resizing and making everything able to print correctly the pieces printed out…

Week in Review 1/24 – 1/28

This is the weekly blog post written by Joshua Pahang ’23. For the past few weeks I have been working on this Neopixel bracelet. This project requires different materials which I have tried my best to adapt to. Although there have been a few hiccups and malfunctions, I have created several codes that display different light…

Week in Review 1/17 – 1/21

This is the weekly blog post written by Chris Hunt ’22. This week I continued working on remaking my sun-seeking-solar-powered robot. This was a project I started years ago, and this year I decided to remake the project from scratch using the tools in the shop. I have recently been working on installing sensors that…

Week in Review 12/06 – 12/10

This is the weekly blog post written by Grace Kallberg ’23. This week I’ve continued working on my word clock project. The time on the clock updates every five minutes and when it works properly, it should spell out a sentence that tells the time. I finally made and soldered the circuit board for my…

Week in Review 11/15 – 11/19

This week’s blog post is written by Brendan Canavan, class of ‘22. This week, after completing the light game project I had been working on for a while, I started a new project that I originally started my sophomore year and decided to finish. This new project is known as the light box project and…

Week in Review 11/08 – 11/12

This is the weekly blog post written by Owen Clark ’23. These past few weeks I have been working on numbers to label each of the computers. I started by using Fusion360 to 3D print models of each number 1 through 20. I then 3D printed each of the numbers using the shop’s 3D printers….

Week in Review 10/25 – 10/29

This is the weekly blog post written by Clark Barayuga ’23. This week I’ve been working on a couple of things. For the first part of the week, I machined a ring for the tapping tool using the Tormach PCNC 1100. I have included a picture of the tool pathing for the ring created in…

Week in Review 10/18 – 10/22

This week’s news update is brought to you by Prince Altidor ’23, a student who has built a workable DIY soil sensor out of a few wires, a few nuts and bolts, and some serious coding. The code is made up of digitally printed percentages of moisture content in dirt or silt, ranging from 0-600….

Week in Review – 2/1 – 2/5

Students finally completed their longboard projects this week. They have utilized many functions within Fusion 360 for this project: Rendering, Joints, Parameters, Motion, and motion links. Really great to see all these incredible designs. Below are a few images from the motion studies the students finished the project with. Enjoy! Also, Freshmen chose their shops…

Week in Review – 1/4 – 1/8

We are back from the holidays and ready for 2021! To get the New Year going, our upperclass students have been working on an electric longboard project. The goal for the project is to become proficient in a variety of modeling techniques and to build a complete electric skateboard from the ground up. Students began…

Week in Review – 12/14 – 12/18

The Upperclassmen spent some time learning how to transition their CAD models into the Fusion 360 CAM interface. Our students have become very adept with their model making skills, and now we are beginning to understand how to translate these designs into CNC files for use with our many different machines including our router, lathe,…

Week in Review – 12/7 – 12/11

This week our sophomores worked on some chairs of their own. Each student was tasked with creating 5 different chairs utilizing different types of modeling techniques, including Loft, Sweep, Revolve, and Surface modeling. Our sophomores are utilizing Onshape during remote learning because it is a great web based CAD system. In our shop, we have…

Week in Review – 11/30 – 12/4

With the Thanksgiving Holiday behind us, we decided to focus our CAD efforts on some items we used quite a bit recently – cutlery. Spoons, forks, and knives are a bit harder to model than one might think, but the upperclass students did an excellent job tackling this difficult challenge. See their efforts below. Our…

Week in Review – 11/23 – 11/27

A short week, but still we try and get some work done before the Thanksgiving holiday. The Juniors and Seniors used the 2 full days of class to create custom lamps in Fusion 360. In creating these lamps, they learned about surface modeling, complex lofts, and the emissive feature in the rendering engine. We hope…

Week in Review

Last week the Juniors and Seniors finished up their custom chair projects. This project was focused on creating custom chairs from a single 4×8 piece of material. By doing so, students can emulate fabricating furniture using our new Techno CNC router. The Sophomores continued with programming with Mr. Christy, and began their Chess set project….

It’s been a while…

Well, apologies, it’ s been a while since our last post. Apparently there is some sort of pandemic happening, and we’ve been busy working out how exactly to teach engineering remotely. With the first quarter of the 20-21 school coming to a close, here is a quick update on how we’ve been managing. First, due…

Move Complete! Just need students…

Well, the move to our new space has been officially completed. Mr. Christy and Mr. Lewkowitz spent much of their time since school was suspended in March moving tools, materials, and everything else needed for the shop into the new space. It looks great, and we are eager to get students into the space and…

Week in Review – 5/11 – 5/15

I thought it would be nice to let you know about the updates to our new space that have been happening over the last couple of weeks. Mr. Christy and myself have been working hard organizing deliveries, cleaning, and sorting through all the new equipment and supplies we have received. In addition, riggers moved our…

Week in Review – 4/13 – 4/17

We continue to push onward with our distance learning in the Robotics and Engineering Shop. This week the students were challenged to create canoes in Fusion 360, while Mr. Christy challenged students to code a bouncing ball. See some of the student canoe creations in the images below. If you want to check out their…

Week in Review 4/6 – 4/10

Well, Corona has struck and while we took some time to figure things out we are back working again on Engineering, albeit in a remote learning environment. This week our students learned some new techniques with Fusion 360 to build lamp shades. They were able to produce complex, elegant shapes with only a few simple…

Week in Review – 3/2 – 3/6

A lot going on in the shop this week. The big news we want to share is that we received a grant from the state for new equipment for our new shop! The Robotics and Engineering Shop has been granted $280,000 for new equipment, and we are busy getting quotes and submitting POs to get…

Week in Review – 2/24-2/28

A bit of a whirlwind since we came back from break. Not much to post, we’ll have more to say next week!

Week in Review – 2/17-2/21

It’s February Break so we are off taking some time off at home, or traveling to new places. Not to worry, we’ll be back in the shop making awesome projects next week. See you then!

Week in Review – 2/10-2/14

As we head into our February Break, here is a quick update from Junior Renata on her work for the Robotics Club. To check out more from Renata on here website, click here. —————————————————————————————————————————————– This week I continued to work on the RPI on Serial communication. Here is the git page, which we finally got…

Week in Review – 2/3 – 2/7

Oscar has continued his work on the Robotics Club underwater rover. Check out Oscar’s blog here. Last week I had a similar design with larger gate 80 by 20 cross beams. This week I’ve been working on fixing the sizes of the S.U.B’s cross beams from 25.40mm to 20mm. The bottom has also been changed,…

Week in Review – 1/27-1/31

Week in Review comes to us this week from Junior Linus Green. He took the time to talk to each student and check out their latest projects. —————————————————————————————————————————————– This week in shop: I finished painting my woo parts for the Motor Mount and I think it looks really good. I am currently waiting for support…

Week in Review 1/20-1/24

Well, a few items for this week. First, congratulations to Mr. Lewkowitz for passing his Private Pilot License test on Tuesday. Mr. L has been working on his pilot license for nearly two years, and has shared his love of flight with students. Did you know the R&E shop also hosts the Medford High School…

Week in Review – 1/13 – 1/17

Our week in review was a bit disrupted with the winter break, but we are back on track now. This week Juniors Oscar and Sean showed off their completed NeoPong project. It’s one of the cleanest looking projects to come out of the shop so far, and these guys put a lot of work and…

Week in Review – 12/9 – 12/13

This week marked the finish of our 8th CTE Freshmen rotation. This year there will be 15 rotations in total, allowing nearly 240 students to experience our shop before choosing a CTE program. Here is a quick rundown of current projects happening in the shop. Linus This week, I brought in led strips to cut…

Week in Review – 12/2 – 12/6

We had our first snow day of the year this year on Tuesday, so it was a slightly abbreviated week for us in the shop. Still, plenty of work happening. Junior Oscar continued work on his LED game with some 3D printing prototypes. The different tube designs are coming to life. We keep adding new…

Week in Review – 11/25 – 11/29

Gobble, gobble everybody. We had a short week due to the Thanksgiving holiday, but still we pushed forward with our projects, and we took a moment to head down to our new shop and check out it’s progress. See photos below. Junior Marcello continued work on his Candy Launcher, a project he is working on…

Week in Review -11/18 – 11/22

We’ve been slackers on our Week in Review posts of late, but we are back and posting again. Can’t believe that Thanksgiving is just around the corner, where does the time go. Here are a few highlights of things happening in the shop over this week. Junior Oscar Barrera decided to look into machining a…

Week in Review – 10/28 – 11/1

Week in Review is brought to you this week by Junior Nico Polcaro. ——————————————————————————————————————————— This week many projects around the shop experienced some major milestones from a fully functioning proof of concept to a near final design, along with new ways to use materials, the first physical piece of a project, and the completion of…

Week in Review – 10/21 – 10/25

Hard to believe we are nearing the end of October already! We had a great Open House, which saw dozens of prospective students come through the Robotics Shop to learn more about what we do here. It was a busy, fun night, and great to see so many students interested in vocational education. The Sophomore…

Week in Review – 10/14 – 10/18

This week’s ‘Week in Review’ post was written to Junior Renata Del Vecchio. Besides making interesting projects in the Engineering shop, Renata can also be found on the volleyball court as a member of the Varsity Girls Volleyball team at MHS. Here is Renata explaining the project in a short video: ————————————————————————————————————————————– Hello! My name…

Week in Review – 9/7 – 9/11

This week our blog post was written by Junior student Phil Maniscalco. Phil took some time to talk to classmates and learn about the many different projects happening in the class. ————————————————————————————————————————————– Oscar and Sean are still working on their ping pong game. They are finishing up on most of their preparations as you can…

Week in Review – 9/23 – 9/27

Hard to believe we are almost all the way through September already! The weather is just beginning to show a hint of coolness in the air during the morning and evenings, and the Halloween decorations have begun showing up in stores. During 5 and 6th periods of the day, we have all our Sophomores, Juniors,…

We’re Moving!

The Engineering, Robotics and Automation program will be moving from the cramped confines of our current shop to a new 5,000 sq. ft location at the front of the Medford High School complex. This move will allow more students to be accepted into our shop, as well as let other non-CTE students have access to…

Week in Review 9/16 – 9/20

The walls are going up! That’s right, the carpentry shop has begun building walls for our new space. You can infer where the windows into the machine shop will be placed, and see the doorways taking shape. Check out the progress photos below. Our Freshmen Exploratory rotations have begun. The rotations allows Freshmen students to…

Week in Review – 9/9 – 9/13

Construction of our new home in the former Auto Body Shop is continuing. This week there was more demo of some existing structures, testing of the compressor unit, and new electrical being run. Next week everything should be removed from the space and a deep cleaning will begin, which will include a good pressure washing!…

2019-2020!

We’re back! Summer is gone and school is back in session. Already our engineering shop is booming with activity and we are looking forward to some great projects this year. First, however, some big news to share. We are moving! That’s right, the Engineering Shop is moving to the old Auto Body shop. It’s a…

Sumobots!

Friday June 1 was our official Sumobot contest. Students have been working on these projects for over a month, and everybody was eager to see whose Sumobot would reign supreme over all others. There many challengers this year, so we began with an offical bracket to get things going! Our uneven numbers required a slightly…

Robotics and Engineering End of Year Showcase

Last night the Robotics and Engineering Shop opened it’s doors to the public so all of our students could show off the great projects they have been working on all year long. It was a perfect way to end the year, and we are so grateful to everybody that was able to make it to…

Cardboard Canoe 2019

In preparation for the 2019 Medford Canoe Races, our new Freshmen crew were tasked with building a cardboard canoe to compete. We had 6 freshmen spread across 2 class periods, and spent about 1 month designing and building the canoe, which, due to class schedules was about 28 class periods spread between the 2 classes….

Week in Review – 5/27 – 5/31

The Cardboard Canoe has been finished, so our Freshmen students returned to working on their electronics guide. They seemed happy to change gears from our fabrication shop to the electronics shop, but are still eager to compete at the canoe races this weekend. We will have updates on how the boat performs next week. One…

Week in Review – 5/20 – 5/24

This week marked the last day of regular classes for our Seniors. Next week they will only be in school for final exams. Most of our graduating seniors will be moving on to engineering college programs next year, you can check out where they are headed by going to our Colleges link on our home…

Week in Review 5/13-5/17

This week has been all about canoe building for our freshmen. The new recruits are putting together their cardboard canoe for the Medford Cardboard Canoe Races on June 1. They have lasercut the majority of the ribs and spars, and were doing assembly the rest of the week. They made very good progress, check out…

PCB Milling Pros

Recently, Mr. Christy was asked to write a blog post for Bantam Tools, the company that produces the PCB Board milling machine we use to create circuit boards for all our projects. Click here to be directed to the article. View at Medium.com

Week in Review 4/29 – 5/3

We are getting very close to the end of the year, and especially close to the last day of class for our Seniors. That’s good news for Thiago, as he recently completed his Bubble Speaker. He has put a lot of effort into this project, but it was definitely worth the wait. Check out the…

Week in Review – 4/22 – 4/26

Well, we are back from our April break and settling in for the home stretch of school for the year. We have decided to engage the Freshmen in the Cardboard Canoe Races held in Medford at Wrights Pond each year. To that end, they are beginning to learn proper technical drawings skills and then will…

Week in Review – 4/1 – 4/5

We cleaned house this week, literally, as both the electronics and machine shop performed some spring cleaning in preparation for the CTE 9th grade showcase on Thursday. The event was held to show current 9th grade students and their parents their chosen shops, and to answer questions parents might have regarding their child’s chosen path…

Week in Review – 3/25 – 3/29

Another week and another month in the books for the Engineering shop. This week Mr. Christy added some new equipment to the shop, winning two bids on the Municibid website for robotic arms. The arms need some TLC, but will be great projects for the students to bring to life. Take a look at some…

Week in Review 3/18 – 3/22

Freshmen pushed forward again this week with the Tetris rig. We did a lot of wiring for each of the LED panels, which allowed our newest shop members to practice their soldering skills. They all did a great job! Senior Rob has been working on a LED light board to display information. His design is…

Week in Review 3/11 – 3/15

This week the Freshmen Brendan, Lucas, Dylan, Daniel, Caterina, and Myles took their first steps into the machine shop and helped put together our giant Tetris rig. The rig itself measures 9′ x 6′ and has 35 LED panels, with each panel having about 100 LEDs. They are really bright! We also measured all the…

Week in Review 3/4 – 3/8

Some big projects in the works this week as our shop looks to create some self promotion pieces for the school. By far our largest new project is our giant LED Tetris game. The shop had 35 10″x10″ LED squares donated, and we’ve been wondering what to do with them for some time. After a…

Week in Review 2/11-2/15

This week in the Robotics and Engineering shop we are in a transition period, as many of the sophomores have finished their LED Acrylic signs and are working on our Electronics and Programming guide to prepare for the Sumo Bot project which will be introduced after the February break. Yep, February break is upon us…

Week in Review 2/4-2/8

Star Wars Droid – Matt Sheehan Senior Matt has taken over an older project that attempted to recreate the motion of the BB-8 Star Wars Droid. Matt has redesigned the internal mechanics and is looking to get a rolling sphere with magnetic head attached. He is very close to getting the mechanism to work. Binary…

Week in Review 1/28-2/1

Towards the middle of the week our Sophomores had a show and tell of their completed Acrylic LED signs. This was their first full project, and they learned many new techniques from CAD to coding. Below is a combination of photos and videos of the finished projects. Next up for the Sophomores is some circuitry…

Week in Review 1/21 – 1/25

A slight departure from the normal discussion of class activities this week, as Engineering teacher Mr. Lewkowitz discusses his recent trip to Tormach in Waunakee, Wisconsin. Tormach makes CNC mills and lathes, and our shop has two of their machines, the PCNC 770, and PCNC 1100. Mr. Lewkowitz took a week long workshop at Tormach…

Week in Review – 1/7/19 – 1/11/19

Well, apologies for the brief hiatus, but we are back! After a nice relaxing holiday break, the shop quite literally ‘turning’ out new projects. For example, check out the work of Senior Eli, who has been practicing his lathe skills. Take a peak at the video below, and his nearly invisible joint between two threaded…

Week in Review – 12/3 – 12/7

Semester projects are getting close to completion. Senior Eli, who finished his Seven Segment Display Clock, has decided to work in the machine shop to create a mechanical nut cracker. His design will utilize a circular aluminum frame with a threaded rod inserted at the top. Twisting the threaded rod will tighten it against a…

Week in Review – 11/26 – 11/30

This week we had some issues with our UPrint 3D printer, but were able to get them resolved with a visit from Zach with AET Labs to help give it a clean, add new nozzles, and show us a few trouble shooting items. You can see all the filament that was aggregating behind the plastic…

Week in Review 11/19 – 11/21

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, our week has been cut a bit short, but we still managed to get some work done before heading off to stuff ourselves with Turkey. Senior Kevin has nearly finished his speaker project. Kevin has worked through several iterations of his project, had many frustrations, but is not very close…

Week in Review 11/12 – 11/16

Winter definitely arrived this week, as we saw our first snow of the season on Friday! While the students were hoping for their first snow day, mother nature did not provide enough powder to make their dreams of sleeping in come true. More completed projects this week! Let’s start with Senior Charlie DePalma’s video game…

Week in Review 11/5 – 11/9

Check out what’s happening in our shop this week!

Week in Review 10/29-11/2

How did we already get to November? Seems like October just started, and then this week students came to class in costumes for Halloween! Several of our Senior students are getting very close to completing their projects. Check out the videos below from Seniors Nate and Kevin. Our Juniors, Mike and Julian, are jointly working…

Week in Review – 10/22-10/26

A lot of machining action this week in the Engineering and Robotics shop at MVTHS. Seniors Matt, Brooke, Chris, and Jeff all spent time in the machine shop learning how to use our Trak CNC Mill. They are currently working on a small introductory project to machine their very own aluminum dice. The process involves…

Week in Review – 10/15-10/19

This week mother nature has decided summer was over and winter should begin! Some cold weather this week in Medford, but still a lot of work happening in the shop. Senior Matt Sheehan completed his first project of the year, a bluetooth speaker. It really turned out well, and is very easy to use. The…

Week in Review – 10/8-10/12

Another week in the books here at MVTHS. Check out the picture array below of Senior Jeremiah Burnett’s Binary RGB Thermometer. This device measures ambient temperature and uses LED indicators to display temperature readings in binary. The LEDs change color to show a gradient from hot to cold. The wood enclosure was laser cut on…

Week in Review -10/1-10/5

On Wednesday we took a short break from our own shop and headed down to Electrical to learn about CAT5 and CAT6 Tel/Data cables and how to create your very own. These cables can be somewhat expensive when bought individually, but are just pennies when you have the tools and the knowledge to put them…

Week in Review – 9/24-9/28

This week our Exploratory freshmen students completed 2 days of CAD learning, culminating in the creation of curvy vases, which were 3D printed on our UPrint SE Plus. They began learning about the tools in our machine shop towards the end of the week, getting the chance to use the chop saw, drill press, and…

Week in Review – 9/17-9/21

A lot has been happening in the shop this week as students work towards completing their various projects. Seniors Wede and Thiago have been collaborating on a water pump that actually beats to music. They have been working through some struggles, but are getting close to a proof of concept for the device. Jeremiah and…

Machine Shop ready to go!

The engineering shop is equipped with some pretty serious tools to allow our students to create not only solid prototypes, but objects that more closely resemble actual finished products. From the manual milling and lathe machines to our Tormach CNC mills, students can build just about anything they can dream of. Working in the machine…

Circuits

This summer, Engineering shop teacher Mr. Sam Christy spent a few weeks organizing the shop and making sure all works stations included a bench power supply, oscilloscope, and soldering station. This enables students to have all the practical tools necessary to work on electronics and troubleshoot projects. Using breadboards, sensors, leds, and other types of…

Engineering

Junior student Mike Ortiz has started the year off quickly, deciding to tinker with pneumatic cylinders to recreate a prop from the popular video game. Luckily, we happened to have some pneumatic cylinders on hand, and Mike went to work prototyping his idea, using the laser cutter to cut parts to act as the assembly…

Robotics

If its robots you want, we have all the tools to help you create our future robot overlords. The robotics aspect of the shop is tightly connected to the engineering and circuitry knowledge required to program and build autonomous rovers, sumo bots, and much more. Students this year will finish up some of their robotics…

It takes a lot of wires…

In an Engineering and electronics shop cable management can be an overwhelming task. usb cords, alligator clips, male to male pins, male to female pins, power cords, 5V, 12V; it all adds up pretty quickly and create quite a mess. Luckily for the shop, students understand that keeping things organized leads to more productive work…

We love LEDs!

It’s no secret that we like playing around with LED lights in our shop. From LED acrylic signs to LED light cubes, we find a way to get lights involved with many of our projects here. Light add another dimension to the work done in the shop, and helps give a finished look to final…

New Shop Logo!

The shop decided to update our logo and give it a more modern feel. We hope you like it.