Brains… Brains…
I admire those who go to work more and more these days. I don’t care if you sweep floors or program computers, if you work for a living and leave the house five days a week, my hat’s off to you. I feel like a zombie now that I am doing the same thing.
And of course nothing at all gets done around the house while this is going on. Nothing. My tiny bit of available time gets used doing the chores that have been put off since last weekend, and catching up on my volunteer work.
So what happened this week? Work. Just work.
A typical day goes like this:
The alarm goes off at 6:00 am. I get dressed and ready to catch the bus just down the street from the house at 6:30. Next I switch buses at the local exchange site about 15 minutes later. That next bus takes about 15 more minutes to get me to the SeaBus terminal, then the SeaBus takes me across the harbour. The harbour crossing also takes about 15 minutes plus some wait time (less than 10 minutes) before departure.
Now I am in Vancouver proper, having arrived at Waterfront Station. From there I walk to the Canada Line (part of our SkyTrain/subway system) and take that to the 49th Street station. These run every three minutes at this time of day so the wait is negligible. Travel time is probably 15–20 minutes on the train, but I really don’t pay close attention. And finally I walk three blocks from the station to the school campus.
Total transit time in is about 1:15. I could probably drive it in 30–45 minutes, but I don’t get free parking on campus so I’d have to park six blocks or more away (or pay $14 a day to park). In addition, I hate driving in downtown anyway, so transit is my preferred method of travel.
Next comes breakfast, which I get from the cafeteria. It’s generally eaten outside the sculpture studio where I spent so much time a few years ago. This is my happy place, and though I don’t stay there that long it sets my mood for the rest of the day.
Then I go upstairs to the MakerSpace, unlock the doors, power up the computers, open some cabinets, and settle in to wait for the first student to arrive. We open at 8:30 am, but some mornings they don’t show up until 10. On other mornings, one or two students may be waiting to rush the doors.
The days are mostly spent helping students with the laser cutter and the 3D printers. Those get the vast majority of the use, and take up most of the time.
Every day I encounter new ways in which things fail or go sideways, and we get past them as best we can. The laser cutter might not cut all the way through the plywood the Design Formation students are using. (Apparently it cuts better in warm, dry weather.) Or a student’s file might simply not tell the laser cutter to do anything, and we have to figure out why.
The 3D printers are simpler in some ways, though I one student did come in with a tiny model that we needed to scale up 4500% (yes, really… we had to make it 45 times bigger) to print at a reasonable size. The software to deal with these models and turn them into g-code (which drives the printer) is pretty straight forward.
Most — but not all — print failures happen in the first 10 layers or so. If the filament doesn’t stick to the printing base, disaster will happen in one of a few ways, generally involving the print head dragging a snarled mess of filament around the object. Later failures can happen if the filament breaks (or runs out), or if some intermediate layer doesn’t stick properly. Both are possible, but much less common than issues near the start. When a print fails we stop it, clean the failed mess off the printer base, and start it over.
For lunch I run down to the cafeteria and grab a salad of some kind. I bring it back up to the MakerSpace and eat there, letting the students continue to work despite the fact that I am supposed to close down for an hour. I hate that idea — it’s wasted time the students can use — and what are they going to do? Fire me?
Around 3 I start keeping close track of what students are doing so I can keep them from starting things that will run long. We close at 4 and we try not to leave machines running overnight. In particular, the laser cutter must always be attended while it is working. It can literally set things on fire.
The doors get closed at 4, and I power down the computers and lock things back up. If all goes well I am on my way back to the Canada Line before 4:10.
The trip home is exactly the reverse of the morning commute, but for some reason it always takes about 90 minutes — 15 minutes longer than the southbound trip. I can’t really explain that. Some of it may be due to traffic slowing down one of the bus routes, but that doesn’t feel like the full explanation.
The biggest worry is that I get delayed leaving the school. At some point the final bus I need to get home switches from 15 to 30 minute intervals between runs. If I miss that last 15 minute option at the end of rush hour, I’m stuck. I can either wait up to 30 minutes at an ugly, outdoor bus exchange surrounded by streets and traffic, or I can walk home. I’ve done the walk once (months ago) and it takes about 30 minutes if I hurry, but it’s mostly up hill and that’s not a fun way to end a long day.
Thankfully the 4 pm close at the MakerSpace makes it pretty easy to catch one of the 15 minute interval buses. When I work in the fine arts shop, we close at 4:30, and if I am delayed at all I will be stuck waiting quite a while for the next bus.
Repeat that five times and the weekend arrives. It’s exhausting, but I enjoy it. I love interacting with the students. When they get things working and learn the processes to do it themselves, I feel their joy. And the glee with which some of them finish their assignments is wonderfully infectious.
This is probably as close as I will ever get to teaching again. I still miss the stone carving classes I taught with Sue down in California. Our students — some of whom read these posts — remain my friends. It’s good to be doing something like that once again.
Not much of a post this week, I know. But it’s what my life is going to be like for another couple of weeks. I have no clue what I will write about next time, but I will share something. These weekly missives are a part of my life now too, and they do get read. Thank you for that!
Cheers!