Sign of the Times
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Mark_Wallace wrote:
I did metalwork in school (school school, not uni)
The problem with universities is that there is too much theory and too little pratice. A cousin of mine turned 18 (the driving age in Norway) the spring before he went to University for Mechanical Engineering studies. So before summer vacation, he got himself an old VW Beetle. Then he covered his family's lawn with a sheet of plastic where he could draw numbered squares (and another plastic sheet to pull over it in case of rain), and started to dismantle the Beetle into pieces: Anything that could possibly be taken apart, he did take apart. Along the line, he drew between two and three hundred sketches to know how they fit together. Each piece was placed in a numbered square on the lawn, with the numbers indicated on the sketches. At the end of summer vacation, he had both disassembled and reassembled that beetle, claiming that he would be able to fix whatever went wrong with that car. I believe him. (This happened before cars were equipped with dozens of microprocessors and all sorts of electronics.) I think that was an excellent way to compensate for the lack of practice in his coming university studies.
Member 7989122 wrote:
he covered his family's lawn with a sheet of plastic where he could draw numbered squares (and another plastic sheet to pull over it in case of rain), and started to dismantle the Beetle into pieces
That's pretty much what I did, the first time I changed a head gasket (but I used an area of a factory floor that wasn't in use, which had 12"/300mm terracotta tiles). The third time (of three times) I changed one, I just tossed everything into a cardboard box as I dismantled it.
Member 7989122 wrote:
I think that was an excellent way to compensate for the lack of practice in his coming university studies.
The main thing I learned from my time in uni was that lecturers are bitchy pr1cks who spend 50% of their time stabbing each other in the back.
Member 7989122 wrote:
(This happened before cars were equipped with dozens of microprocessors and all sorts of electronics.)
Another reason I'm glad I gave up driving. I had a lot of expensive tools, but a couple of million for diagnostics servers is more than I'm willing to spend.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote:
I did metalwork in school (school school, not uni)
The problem with universities is that there is too much theory and too little pratice. A cousin of mine turned 18 (the driving age in Norway) the spring before he went to University for Mechanical Engineering studies. So before summer vacation, he got himself an old VW Beetle. Then he covered his family's lawn with a sheet of plastic where he could draw numbered squares (and another plastic sheet to pull over it in case of rain), and started to dismantle the Beetle into pieces: Anything that could possibly be taken apart, he did take apart. Along the line, he drew between two and three hundred sketches to know how they fit together. Each piece was placed in a numbered square on the lawn, with the numbers indicated on the sketches. At the end of summer vacation, he had both disassembled and reassembled that beetle, claiming that he would be able to fix whatever went wrong with that car. I believe him. (This happened before cars were equipped with dozens of microprocessors and all sorts of electronics.) I think that was an excellent way to compensate for the lack of practice in his coming university studies.
At my primary school, so aged about 8, I recall our teacher obtained a couple of obsolete television sets (which were a bit of a novelty then), threw us a handful of screwdrivers and told us to "have fun". In the days of CRTs, valves, and large capacitors it's amazing we survived, but we did. And learnt how to use a screwdriver. And a heck of a lot else, including a love of taking things apart. I don't think we "learnt how it worked" as a TV, but I certainly got the gist of a variable potentiometer for the volume, push-button (mechanical) knobs for pre-selected channels, how wiring should be run neatly etc. These days on the railway, I give a 14- or 15-year old new joiner to the youth group a spanner or screwdriver and ask them to remove an inspection panel or something, and they just look at me blankly! (Don't worry, it only takes a few meetings for them to get the idea, and then the bug...)
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CONSTRUCTION ZONE >= 3m
Young enough to know I can. Old enough to know I shouldn't. Stupid enough to do it anyway! JaxCoder.com
