All About Safety

At the beginning of the school year, students are introduced to the robotics lab and the machinery and equipment they will be using as part of the course. The students will be given lessons on lab safety procedures, shown the location of safety equipment, and given demonstrations on the safe operation of machinery and equipment. As a summative assessment, students will be tested on each station within the lab. The introduction to the lab equipment and safety procedures will take up one week of classes.

In addition to a test on each station, students will be grouped into twos or threes and tasked with creating a Safe Practices Pod-Cast on one of the following: a station in the lab (ie: soldering, hand tools, the band saw, and the drill press), general lab safety, or emergency procedures. Students will use video, graphics, voice, and sound effects to create their pod-casts. Each pod-cast should be no more than 90 seconds in length. The pod-casts will be posted on the robotics class's website for public access.

Pod-casts will be graded on completeness (are all key safety elements covered?), ease of understanding (were directions clear and concise?), flow and technical delivery (were transitions smooth, was picture quality appropriate?), and entertainment value (would you watch it again? was the information presented in a memorable way?). Finally, students will vote for their favorite pod-cast to win a prize for the group - a precision screw-driver set, or other small but useful tool.