Design and Technology Academic
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often wonder how Trinity College operated without the existence of the Treacy Technology Centre. We continually have groups of Old Boys visiting our Department who are in awe of the excellent facilities our students now have for Design and Technology Mr Ray Archibald education. They usually Head of Design and Technology have the same comments: “I wish we had these practical areas when I was at Trinity” and “How fortunate our students are today.” It is now seven years since construction and the Treacy Centre is operating to full capacity. Students have also been spending extra time before and after school and at lunchtimes completing practical projects or using computer software to generate technical drawings or manufacture complex shapes on our Laser Cutter. This year has seen the completion of the new Engineering Studies course for our Year 12 students for the first time. At the time of writing this article they are about to sit the new Course of Study examinations and we wish them well. In the practical part of this course students designed and manufactured an Electric Vehicle which competed in the WA Electric Vehicle Challenge at Swan TAFE. In other Year 12 courses students completed models of architecturally designed houses in Technical Graphics, speaker sound systems in Applied Technology and electronic model robot arms and forklifts in Systems Technology. Year 11 Engineering students designed and built remote control cars and in Applied Technology made projects ranging from flat pack furniture to sand boards.
Technical Graphics students used IronCAD and Autocad software to complete a range of machine components, house plans and geometric designs. Year 10 Design and Technology Materials students manufactured a diverse range of projects including laminated furniture, cabinets, wall clocks, rocking chairs and guitars. Engineering Systems students have designed cars using mousetraps as the power source and completed a range of electronics projects. Our Middle School students made a range of items including desk tidy clocks, logo money boxes, CO2 cars, junior hacksaws, candle lanterns and wall plaque key holders – to name a few! I think our Old Boys have got it right – “How fortunate our students are today.”
2007 WA Electric Vehicle Challenge On Saturday, 27 October a group of our Year 12 students competed in a race held at Swan TAFE with an electric vehicle which had been designed and manufactured by the class. This project was a component of the new Course of Study for Engineering Studies and was the first time that Trinity had entered this event. We finished the one hour endurance race in a very creditable fourth place and congratulations must go to team members Sam Cadwallander, Liam Dee, Guy Dryka, Chris Andrawes, and Dean Foley. This was an excellent result considering that twenty five vehicles started the Challenge. Thanks also to our Technician Mr Phillip Bloomfield who helped the students with his expertise both on the day and at school.
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Mr Ray Archibald Head of Design and Technology
