Scotch College

It's all changed! - TDP

Over the Christmas holidays the facilities of the Design and Technology Department underwent a major leap forward.

Boys arrived back and peered through our front door with wide eyes, or arrived for their first class and said: "But it's all changed sir!".

The Keon-Cohen building has served the school very well over the years. Old Boys from days of yore come through and recount to the staff what function it served and who taught there and what activities they did there.

We have been told that it was originally the school assembly hall in the early years of the move to Hawthorn; it was also the gymnasium for many years and someone thought it was the armoury at one point.

Prior to providing accommodation for the Design and Technology department it was the facility for the Computer department (who left us the legacy of air conditioning).

The long holiday provided time for the builders to work on extending a mezzanine floor so that a continuous upper level was available. The graphics equipment was transferred across to the Art department and our electronics laboratory was moved into a more spacious and quiet room upstairs.

A new technician's area was provided and a new design room, with capacity for six computers during the year to be available for boys to complete design work and drawings with.

Downstairs has seen our previously very tight accommodation double in size. This will enable us to be able to complete a greater range of work and to provide a better facility with more equipment as time and resources allow.

A new piece of equipment which arrived towards the end of last was a CIM Centre. The CIM Centre is a computer numerically controlled lathe and milling machine. It was provided with a well designed software package which the boys find very easy to use and the staff are gaining in confidence! Our first project has been with Year 9 and 10 classes. We have used the PC Lab in the Lithgow Centre to design and simulate the machining of an aluminium screwdriver handle.

When the teacher and technicians are confident the boy has a correct design the handle is machined up on the CIM Centre, without human hands apart from a few keyboard commands. To let the boys compare this operation with how the process used to work, they complete the handle with a manual lathe. The previously forged, ground, hardened and tempered blade is then fitted.

We look forward to showing members of the Scotch family through the newly renovated facility on Family Day.