We had a semester each of:
Wood Shop
Metal Shop
Drafting (!)
Home Ec - cooking
Home Ec - sewing
I am not an exceptionally talented craftsman, but I liked these classes well enough. This was 20ish years ago, though, and I don’t think that school district offers any of them anymore.
Not me, but my husband and our sons took it/are taking it. Norskie schools require both boys and girls to take wood shop. They also require both boys and girls to take home ec, and they learn sewing and knitting in art classes.
I never had any of that, come to think of it. I taught myself cooking, sewing, and knitting. I can also assemble Ikea furniture! 
I’m surprised that IKEA furniture assembly isn’t on the curriculum of Scandinavian schools.
I took a semester of shop all three years in 6/7/8/9, then a year of technical drawing in 10. This was in the early 1980s. My guidance counselor though I shouldn’t have been in shop in high school because I was supposed to go to college and become an accountant or something.
I ended up going into engineering, and the experience with tools and drafting was incredibly valuable.
I have a bookshelf right behind me that I built in 9th grade shop in 1983.
My middle/high was in the '00s, and we didn’t HAVE a shop class in either. I did take a technology course, but our use of woodworking was incidental, it was more about calculating loads on bridges (using simulation programs) and then building stable ones, or building remote control wooden cars.
In seventh or eighth grade, I had a semester of shop (Ohio, early '80s). It was pretty feeble, but then most of our classes were feeble. We did a bit of wood, a bit of plastic, a bit of leatherwork. I remember the teacher asking everyone who wanted an A in the class to raise their hand, so he could give them some work for extra credit – probably calculating board-feet or something. In the end I got an A in that class solely for raising my hand; the guy never did give us the extra work. In truth, I was the most indifferent of shop students. I spent the whole term reading John Carter of Mars or something, and sanding at a bit of wood whenever the teacher looked my way.
Of course, today I’m a general contractor, so go figure.
And you’re a genie if you live in a lamp.
I took shop class in 8th grade and still have the scar to prove it. (Had a little run in with the jig-saw, but managed not to cut the top half-inch of my thumb off.) :eek: Funny thing was that I saw the blood on the blade before I felt the pain.
I disagree. knowledge of the physics behind material used in structures or products is completely unnecessary. We’ve survived thousands of years building massive structures without the science of physics. All that is necessary is the ability to test an object or structure to failure and breakin stuff ain’t rocket science.
For me, 7th grade was mostly wood shop. IIRC, toward the end of the school year, we did a bit of sheet metal work.
8th grade was printing with moveable type and the California Job Case, and mechanical drafting with vellum and T-squares. Our teacher for this year was Mr. Triebe. No idea what his first name was, but if you dared utter “One Bee, Two Bee, Tree Bee” in his presence, he’d be apt to dump out a case of type and make you sort it.
when I was in HS I made an 8" knife (not including handle) with walnut grip and brass fittings. Used it as a book marker in my other classes while I was working on it.
If there’s no physics, it’s not engineering, it’s just building.
Testing doesn’t guarantee success. First, you can never exactly replicate real service conditions in a test, especially when real service involves randomly varying loads repeated over many years. Second, materials and structures vary in strength. Just because one structure held 10 tons doesn’t mean another one built to the same specifications will. Overcoming both of those limitations of testing requires some knowledge of physics. You need to figure out how many tests to run and what to measure during the tests.
My daughter had wood shop last year in seventh grade and loved it.
Again, I disagree. The Wright Brothers were not physicists yet they managed to design and test aircraft. They weren’t just “building”, they engineered their inventions in every sense of the word.
And additionally, there were many aircraft built in the following decades that failed using using physics so your your premise that it’s a requirement for engineering is just a false statement. Obviously it adds greatly to the process but it’s not a requirement.
The Wright Brothers had absolutely the most sophisticated and complete analysis of the problems of flight as well as the best practical testing. They knew the physics better than anyone else at the time; that’s why their aircraft flew the way they thought they would fly.
Only on the Dope will a debate break out over a straight line from The Breakfast Club
Based on the descriptions, it’s our “pretecnología”, which was intended to give people a flavor of the kind of things you could learn in Trade High School.
It was compulsory in 5th grade; work was done in teams of 4-5. I got stuck with 4 girly girls who were afraid to touch a hammer; we were also the only team whose work was not performed partially or completely by the father or uncle of one of the students. When you’re supposed to be part of a team of 5 students, “competing” against other teams of 5 students (we didn’t get curved, but nobody can claim that teacher was good at setting clear expectations of what achievements would get you which grades), and instead you’re alone against a car mechanic, an electrician, a pair of plumbers… yep, it sucked.
It could have been interesting properly taught; I enjoyed Electronics Lab in college (weee, I get to solder stuff! And what I design and build works!).
At my Junior High in Kansas City, I took both Wood and Metal shop and as far as I’m concerned, were two classes that had the most lasting day-to-day value of any class I took in that school.
You mean their catapult launched powered glider? The Wrights were the original patent trolls.
You obviously know nothing about the Wright’s development of the first controlled, powered, manned aircraft, and their methodology in designing it. Their efforts have influenced all engineering from that point on.