Technical skills don't come from a book, you might absorb the basics from reading, listening to a lecture or watching a demonstration but developing the actual skill means getting your hands involved and doing it. Planning a project, gathering materials and tools and finally, putting something together is the test.
Some high schools are coming up with pretty cool projects for their tech students, Niskayuna High School, outside Schenectady NY, is one of them. They have a website called Nisky Garage to showcase the work of the Niskayuna Auto shop and their first project was building an old school racer using a Honda SL350 frame powered by a CB350 engine. Part of the fun was a build off competition with another school, Newfield CSD.
Everyone was pleased with how well that one turned out so they're off again with Project TZ, a 1992 TZ frame and swing arm, 1999 TZ forks and a 2005 Husqvarna Te450 motor with RS250 body work.
The students learn a lot and have fun, the teachers are happy and the school and parents are proud, what's not to like?
I've got a couple more schools with motorcycle projects going on that I'll be mentioning soon, if you know of one in your area, drop us a line.
Thanks for the tip, Eric!
Link: Nisky Garage
Chris says
Nice. Although someone should have told the second group that aqua-blue anodizing doesn’t look good with Big Red tank emblems :-p
cl
hoyt says
Most excellent, Kneeslider!
To all of those students out there reading this site: work hard & study hard. There’s a lot to be engineered in the 2-wheeled world.
Shaine says
My wife loved the fact that there is a female student working on the project too. We both think we need more women in biking that aren’t just there as eye candy to sell bikes. My wife works on bikes with me – she has much smaller hands…
Kudos to these students – if they managed this in highschool; imagine what they will be able to do later in life.
Sean says
I’m doing an automotive course at my highschool, and sharing a passion for bikes with my teacher, I’m doing some of the machining I need for certain components after school. It’s hard for a seventeen year old to make the sorts of connections that mean I have access to a well-equipped workshop, with an experienced mechanic and machinist looking over my shoulder to make sure I’m doing it right. More teachers need to embark on this sort of project, to actively involve their pupils in learning via their passions. After all, I’m excited about maths, now that I know I can work out the exact place to drill mounting points by just recording some angles.
todd says
This is beautiful work. I remember the shop class in my high school; Honda had donated 6 brand new, 1981 silver CBX Super Sports. Only one was ever taken apart. My senior year (1991) I helped load the (still brand new) bikes onto a trailer to be completely scrapped and destroyed, one of the conditions for having the bikes. It was very difficult for me to do.
We had a number of other motorcycles laying around the shop, all old junk needing a rebuild. Though I never was in any of the shop classes I helped my friend build a shifter cart with a CB125 motor. That thing was fast compared to other kids Briggs and Stratton efforts.
While I was (still am) lucky enough to have free, unrestricted access to a machine shop all other kids had to make do with high school or junior college shop classes. Let’s here it for the teachers keeping these courses running!
-todd
Rich the shop teacher says
Thank you all for your coments. and as for the blue with Red….. oh well;) it is great to see outside excitement for this. please check out the site and pass it around. feel free to drop us a line we love to hear from everone. I hope to keep doing this for years to come. as for next school year we are going to work with Saratoga auto mesuem to build a green motorcycle based off a CRF and following the motoX class race bikes……
Thanks all
Richie D