“How to convert my time at Bosch Rexroth into relevant educational experiences for middle school kids?”  This has been the lens I have looked through this experience.  I thought coming up with an idea would be a challenge.  I was walking into a foreign land and a foreign workplace.  I did not know what to expect.  Luckily, my project fell into my lap.

I will be creating a workplace environment for my students.  I am going to walk them through the process of going from materials to the customer’s hands and all of the steps in between.  I will be using the Bosch product, Eco Shape.  It is rigid aluminum tubing with galvanized steel connectors.  The possibilities are almost endless with this kit.  The kids will be experimenting with the kit to create forms then using the kit to solve a real-world problem by creating 3D printed solutions that will fit on the kit.  These solutions will be put on an open source website for others to upload and download these solutions.  Hopefully, this will create a community of creative problem solvers that can learn from and share ideas and solutions to big problems using the Eco Shape as the base.

There have not been many challenges thus far.  The only hiccup has been the length of time to get some of these connecting parts.  The successes have been numerous.  I had the opportunity to operate an industrial saw and cut the parts for my kit.  This was an adventure.  I can understand the need for accuracy and efficiency.  I had to measure the parts I cut within 100ths of millimeters and adjust the cuts based on efficiency and waste.  I’m proud to say that the waste created was 700 millimeters out of 17,000 millimeters.  I feel that the lack of road blocks in my project is a false positive.  There is no guide to do what I am doing.  I’ m building the plane as I fly it.  Ask me what my hiccups are in two months and I will have an extensive list.  Thus far, I am G2G.