And that the rivet lines must be straight. We'll visciously mock crooked rivet lines ... anonymously, from 1100 miles away.

I hope your students realize this too. It would be a shame if they didn't appreciate what they have. I still remember my best teachers.

I'm in no matter what!

Ah hell... I've seen just as bad on the real McCoy- just adds realism.

Use an automatic center punch to start the holes; it might even be enough to set the rivet/nail and save you from drilling.

This is what you need. Brad point bit

They keep the drill from drifting off center.

EBR

A thought to Next Years Project:

A Rivet Factory

A custom Splunk and Smudge, just for your team.

Attached File

So you got Smokey the Bear covered but..

What I haven't seen in this thread , nor any image yet , especially with the bear on the Ranger Watch tower begging for inclusion... is a "Where is  that Pic-a-nic Basket?" Yogi  reference.  Maybe at least a small sign about "Do Not Feed The Bears." with the word "Not" maybe Scratched out by a few claw marks? I know your kids have only known a word post those horrible abominations of CGI reboot Yogi and Boo Boo films,  but the original cartons were good and deserve Easter Egg reference if you can.

The Real Yogi for those too young to know.

Go to 11 seconds in as time stamp is not working on links

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghhAeQAaedA

and/or

Go to 7 seconds in



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak6gaxdgxZo


Also as mentioned in at the end of last years thread with the older forestry firefighter stuff,   You had people who were in the Civilian Public Service /C.P.S.  due to  being conscientious objectors who wanted to serve but needed  an alternative to military service during World War II.  Some fought  Forrest fires bravely for the Forestry Service see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Public_Service#Forestry_and_National_Parks    Plus, some may have  dealt  with Japaneses  Forrest Fire bombing attacks during that period.

Perhaps with World War 2's   and the beginning of Smoke Jumpers, both have their respective  centennial  coming up soon.  Maybe add the cause of theses Forest Fires being from  say a Japaneses Firebomb Balloons?

Which were called  Fu-Go https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb that landed  in  the North Western Pacific side of our country.  Going as far west east deep into  the states of Wyoming & Montana https://www.history.com/news/attack-of-japans-killer-wwii-balloons-70-years-ago  Due to the USA Government's censoring the media about them, the Japanese quit using these FU-GO Fire Balloons, as they thought their balloons were a failure, due to the lack of media coverage of any events.

You can see all locations on the 4th image/map of all the reported(found landed) Balloon sites, with ones that were found near you. Like how Thermopolis, Wyoming  was hit early on, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb#Results_and_abandonment .

Is  that is taught out in your state's school system? It wasn't taught in North Carolina's. That we were attacked many more times than Pearl Harbor..

Since Smoke Jumpers started in 1940, working this extra bit of trivia in there somehow might be another cool bit of history to include. As each earlier display already has so many things crammed into them for extra history bits.   Have you ever thought about having each class/year hides special Easter Egg, that  they keep their mouth shut about, until someone stumbles on it perhaps years later? Maybe give it away at their 5th or 10th year reunion, if no one  has found the hidden "Easter Egg" yet. Making a history & trivial kind of contest. Amongst the  other special cultural references like the Guy on the trestle under the train, and The Tower's  ATC response to Ghost Rider....

On the students slide show for each display, great win on that battle with IT,  and a cool extra display enrichment.  Maybe put an image of their notes in each years telling you off ,  "they quit" the projects, etc. , that you save from each year. In some sort of humorous way of course.


Addition suggestion, not that you need extra work.... If you can look up the Architecture Firms that designs the schools for your state. Maybe   send them some images or an invite to see what you and your students have done. So they will be encouraged to include spaces in future designs of schools for your type of class and those of other good teachers to add to the school interiors & history. Possibly having the affect of  Architects adding more space in the schools, to be filled in later. Knowing they don't have to fill the space but leave it for those students coming to the school. Maybe altering a drop ceiling that  doesn't drop as far since that entire hallway or area doesn't need to hide as much plumbing and HVAC systems. If they see a possible future use for the space, they may not hide it from usage. If any of these kids becomes a teacher that goes into Arts or possible relatable subject, they may take what you had them do into a different school system. Be kinda nice if the school they get to was built with those spaces waiting for someone like that.

 

I'm presently having the worst searching  luck on Shorpy's   old Photo Blog   https://www.shorpy.com/ for hitting the magical search function keywords and terms to get the right results for above, finding lots of other not related great stuff,  but that is where I learned about the CPS and more about their 1940's Forestry  Service that included Fire Fighting. The bareness of the camp/living quarters juxtaposed to the pride in their faces was interesting. I wanted to include their faces to at least try to tempt you more. I'm pretty sure you probbably heard of Shorpy's but just in case you haven't and for anyone reading....

Unfortunately, Shorpy's has direct linking shut off so I can tempt you with a quick sampling of amazing old images. That  are full of so much detail, due to original huge Negative's size. That  you can see enough details to count rivets  on the Planes, Ships, and/or Trains. Which some are documenting them building the originals, for even better details. Plus being able to see  what items are on store shelves or an old printing press's parts(example listed and linked below). I add two off topic photos linked below, for how detailed they can be. The ones I wanted to add  would have been uploaded before May 2022  but beyond that I may have to scroll page by page backwards trying to find those images out of so many . I did once make back through the entire sight back in 2010, which was over a week's worth of effort. It saddens me to think of all the new content may means someone never again sees the older great content due to it be the newest and on the front page. I've seen  some great local history on Cotton Mills and children that worked in them in my home state.

Many of Shorpy's  photographs came from  people hired to go  around the country documenting the War Efforts and general life standards in the USA for Congress. Documenting "The Relocation Acts" (there were multiple ones, not all bad), The "Farm Security Administration"  , "Office of War Information" , "Resettlement Administration",  The" Federal Emergency Relief Administration" (FERA) and the rest of those Alphabet Soup Agencies. If not  familiar with  Shorpy's  photo blog let me tempt you with the details you can see  in  these 2  (links should be viewed from a computer & with a real monitor aka warning huge image size)  unrelated Photographs but full of eye candy detail images.

September 1942. Richwood, Nicholas County, West Virginia. "Lois Thompson, printer's devil on the Nicholas Republican newspaper, operating Linotype machine." 4x5 inch acetate negative by John Collier for the Farm Security Administration.
https://www.shorpy.com/node/26911?size=_original#caption

and/or

September 1942. "Richwood, West Virginia. An engineer on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad." 4x5 inch acetate negative by John Collier for the Farm Security Administration No. 5123 was a Class P-3 4-6-2 locomotive built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1913.
https://www.shorpy.com/node/26912?size=_original#caption

Click on the image to go back normal screen size and to read the comments which are tightly controlled on the images.


Its been said but your students are very lucky to have you as their teacher. It shows in them coming back to work on things, working on their lunch period, etc. That type of student behavior and desire for school  takes skill to nurture... I'ld bet many list you as one of their's, if not their favorite teacher.

Not sure if you are open to ideas or you are letting the team work out the issues themselves.

No idea what material you are using for the windscreen but working with custom PC water cooling hard tubing we mostly used either PETG or acrylic.
You want to try and keep the number of heat passes/shaping to as few as possible but slower is always better then trying to undo a bend/curve.
Maybe make a brace/frame of the curve out of wood and form/shape the screen over it with some help from gravity. Start on one end and slowly work to the opposite end, so you only have to do one total pass.
And as always, you want to have the workable piece of material a bit bigger than you need cause you can always cut/shave it down once you get the curve just right.

If I am recalling correctly, you have been doing these projects for quite a few years, so I'm sure your crew will get it done far better than I could.
Love the pictures and really appreciate you and your crews time/effort, definitely gives me hope seeing the passion and hard work.

Edit- Went back and found you are using Lexan, seems like a good choice and pretty similar to PETG or acrylic.

Went back and chased down some of the older threads. I recall occasionally catching them but never dove in.

Saw the F22 bubble... well it seems you are pretty well covered in that area.

I'll have to go back and catch up on them, they are really awesome.Glad I found some good reading material for the next few weeks.

Didn't mean it that way... saw the completed pictures of a bunch of different projects and thought I better shut my mouth cause you guys have done work like this before.
My apologies, I wasn't trying to be mean.

guns, glad you got the power conduit installed.  If it's permanent, no worries.  If it's not, my suggestion would be to remove it, and run several pull strings through it, then reinstall, will make it much easier to pull the power cables through the conduit when you come to that.  Might leave a few extra for the art maintenance krewe to pull new wires for the new motor in a few years.

Another suggestion, since y'all are already installing the windows before painting, you might consider covering the windows w/ grease when you spray paint the fuselage.  Just make sure whatever formulation you use doesn't negatively affect the clear plastic you're using, or the paint.  Then once painting is actually complete, freshmen can wipe the grease off the windows.  Completely, not leaving a single smudge on the windows or the paint...

Just catching up on this thread since I didn't have a chance during SHOT, and this last weekend we detoured to Mexico to rescue an alcoholic worm...

I didn't know what Dragon Eggs were until I watched the video.

Not sure having a drone dropping them in the school would be the best idea.

It could fly into the Chemistry lab a few times a year?

Thanks, I'm honored and glad to spread some WW2 history to those that might not have learned about. Especially in an area affected by it. The Jet Stream, the Japanese used, was a recent scientific discovery of the time. To the students that may seems like old to ancient history, but to us that was within our parent's life time. I fixed the youtube links above for both Yogi Bear cartoons for some reason the clips embedded wouldn't stay working with the timestamp starting a few seconds into each of them them.

Since you liked Shorpy's here is just a Wyoming search to sucker your time away https://www.shorpy.com/search/node/Wyoming Remember that every image has that "full size"   option for if you see details of interest. On the front page (look down on the right hand side, involves lots of scrolling even on computer monitor) you'll have Names/Themes for the Popular Galleries subjects  , that if you click "All Galleries" at the bottom of that list, you'll get another longer list of different names for Themes/Subjects.  The Guys are under "Handsome Rakes" and Girls under more obvious names. On that front page "Collections"  is to help find your favorite agency photographer, like say  Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration .  As far as Technology other than more common obvious subjects listed, there is  one that you may never get your students back from.   https://www.shorpy.com/technology They will have to figure out how the old small town "Party Line" Switch Board,  with all the literal bells, image worked then let them start to grasp each additional connection was someone manually inserting the cord, to the next town onward aka old Telephone Operators. They will appreciate switch gear in a new found light.



Which for the Anti-Fire theme , there is this old WW2 Federal Art Project / WPA War Services Project Poster, probably a bit too Racist for today climate  or someone will eventually complain... but let's say if a miniature was stuck on the Forest Fire Watch Tower, then  aged away, as if it has been there since the war...   "Circa. 1942 silkscreen poster by Louis Hirshman encouraging safe disposal of matches, showing stylized Japanese soldier standing behind a tree with a match, with the rising sun in the background" https://www.shorpy.com/node/1402

There is a decent/good image of Fu-Go lower portion from the Museum of Aviation Robins AFB, Warner Robins, GA .



From
https://www.facebook.com/MuseumofAviation/photos/10159957967034813/

That in the comments has the  Oregon memorial plaque dedicate to the Preacher, his wife and the kids he took on a Sunday Picnic. He survived so others could be warned about these Balloons to save lives, but the guilt he felt must have been horrible. yet, if he hadn't gone back to the car...

Plus Maybe weasel in a class Field Trip to Thermopolis? The students obviously have a dire research need.
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/wyoming/ww2-japanese-bombed-wyoming-thermopolis-wy/

Another Trivia fact- These Fu-Go balloon attacks were the longest ranged assaults in the history of warfare, and it wasn't until 1982 (during the Falkland Islands War) that the distance was topped. Basically the first intercontinental weapon bombardment came from Japan. Stacked that on after Pearl Harbor....

The Ballast ring and altitude barometer that dropped weight to adjust for altitude lost over time while simple was the start of combine operational systems. A mechanical computer. Maybe that might be a future test idea, I bet your students would come up with many ways to solve this with limited technology(no computers, code, GPS, etc.)  but none as basic as that.

I'm sure the Students' Google-Fu is far better than mine, they just won't find much on the Fu-Go  in old Newspapers of the Time.  A good take away lesson about how reports of any  war on both side can be very different than the actual truth. Even for what is happening at home. As if "Good Morning Vietnam" wasn't good enough weekend homework assignment about how our  USA has always censored stuff, despite claiming not to...

Trailer for "Good Morning Vietnam" just because, your students may read this thread and have no clue what it was.


I can see the students being able to add small mock simple Mock Up semi quickly. Maybe one that failed and is caught in the trees, ruined from the extra rainfall that year. Poor Fu-Go, no fire for you!  In the display fairly easily. The ones coming back in the later class, next year,  can then build a better display device(painting schematic) and/or one for down below(student floor level) for other students to see how the ring and blow out disks worked to drop sand bags.  What  If each returning student that wants to, builds one for the display over summer, then you would  have a small fleet for one side and one "hero"(best one and to be the new big functioning one) one to put out that is more automated. Warning the original student may lose their baby this way to crowd's inputs. Starting the next year off with students coming with projects already pre-started, for extra credit of course. They would  need a scale but size could vary slightly for near and far Fu-Gos.

Maybe  for this display/year build  a small Fu-Go running on  a track across that has a small winch drum  on the traveling trolley. ( It could literally just roll out the line, down to the balloon, as the wheels turns the axle from forward then reverse motion for rewind).   That a  line lowers the Fu-Go as drifts over the area.  If they're advance, and time permits, have it release mock little sand bags  that can be  pulled back up to be reset, when the above track Trolley  reaches the end of travel. Hear the Fear Display. So  when the end of track sensors is tripped and suddenly the fire effects get bright below and the audio plays of crackling wood to the eventual splash ending the audio for fire go bye-bye.  That effect will be drawing people's attention away. Meanwhile  while the Fu-Go balloon resets (rewinds their little clear drop lines) for the mock  sand bags,  while both the bags and the Fu-Go Balloon are being raised back up to the track's trolley  and then travels back to the start side.Waiting until the next one drifts from the Pacific from some cue...    Future students can  add on Display Option, maybe they can then recreate a working display of the complex mechanisms the balloons used over their flight path, for at ground level working example.   The dropped sand bags could be random pieces of bubble gum dropped but that would require reloads, so about that large drop ring...  Drops maybe 1-2 pieces at the end of school day and ring with 20 holes is a school month.

Then again that   Drone and "Dragon Eggs" would  work.  Everyone loves a fire drill.