March 2020 – Page 3 – Mechanical Sympathy

Master/Journeyman/Apprentice

I’m once again in the additional qualification classroom in order to gain another teachable. This one was a bit tricky. I’d been working in information technology since I graduated with an honours BA in English in the mid ’90s. When I went into teaching, I looked into getting my technical qualifications (I’d spent a fair amount of money on getting IT qualified and wanted to keep a finger in the pie, so to speak). It didn’t happen. The Byzantine rules around what I needed and how I qualified were taking so long to get through, it was easier to just plug in my degree (to a very degree friendly teacher qualification system) and start there.

I did computer clubs and delved into #edtech relentlessly, but didn’t get my computer engineering qualification until now because I needed it for a headship, and they’d recently made changes that cleared up some of the labyrinthine rules around getting the qualification.

So here I am, a qualified IT technician in a computer engineering class. If we’re doing networking, or computer repair, I’m aces, but soldering? Circuit boards? Not so much. The funny thing is we have electrical engineers that don’t know what a registry is or how to reset an IP address, but they are brilliant on a circuit board. I’m starting to realize that computer engineering is another one of those subjects that collects expertise from various disciplines and files it all under the same heading. I’m also beginning to see why some comp-eng teachers’ courses look so different from other comp-eng teachers’ courses.

Other than cutting networking cables, running them and installing hardware, I’m not really a nuts and bolts of electronics kind of guy, but after taking this AQ, I will be. When I was a kid I got into cars and stereos and did some wiring then, it’s nice to get hands on with components again. My experience has all be around making it (IT) work for business, after taking this AQ, I get the sense that I’m going to end up delving more deeply into maker culture, something I’ve wanted to do for too long.

Getting my head back into wiring diagrams felt impossible in the first few days. I’m finding the tools available, especially Arduino and Fritzing to be invaluable in bridging gaps in knowledge. I know I won’t be a Jedi knight at circuitry by the end of the course, but the 1-2-3 system our instructor has been using has recognized the varieties of skills in the room and allowed people to focus on what they want to improve in, and improve I have.

I’m looking forward to hitting my tech-class in the fall and getting my hands dirty. In the meantime, I just started Shop Class As Soulcraft, suggested by our instructor on the last day of class. Some mechanic’s philosophy will help fill in the gap I’m feeling between my academic background, and my urge to work with my hands again.

Custom Motorcycle Digital Art

What I’ve got here is a photo of my Triumph Tiger 955i taken as near to fully side on as I could manage it. I then photoshoped into a outline (trace contour and some negative inversion along with some line cleanup did it). I saved that image as a vector and shared it with my trusty technology design teacher at work. She cleaned up the lines a bit (mainly simplifying them) so they could be cut into perspex using a computer controlled router.

I then got an Arduino micro-contro ller and cut a length of Adafruit neo-pixel leds to fit the length of the perspex. I soldered some wires onto the neo-pixel led strip and wired them up to the Arduino. I then installed the libraries to run the neo-pixel strip and ran the basic test pattern code on the Arduino.

This is the result:

https://youtu.be/NAQBZQhmcgI

With a bit of coding you could colour code the display to something specific or make different patterns. The strip along the bottom is 9 leds long, so you could get pretty fancy with patterns if that floated your boat. I’ve also seen Arduinos run like graphic equalizers, responding to music with different colours and patterns, so that’s another option.

Metres long LED strips can be gotten cheap. An Arduino can be had for less than $10 if you’re cagey about it. Three wires and a bit of perspex and you’re ready to go. I’d guess in raw parts it cost all of about ten bucks to put together, and that includes an Arduino that could do a lot of other things. If you’ve got a customized bike, a clean photo and a bit of prep and you’d have a disco light version of your specific machine.

***

I 3d modelled the Tiger a while ago using a Structure Sensor. It snaps on to an ipad and is very straightforward to use. Once you’ve ‘painted’ in your 3d model using the lasers on the sensor you can clean it up in something like the 3d modelling software that is included in Windows 10. Here is what an upload of that looks like on Sketchfab:

Tigertester by timking17 on Sketchfab

I used Meshmixer to clean up any missed pieces in the original scan and then dropped it into a Dremel 3d printer. This printer is fairly cheap and low resolution, but the model came out ok. What I’d really like to do is try and print it in something like the FormLabs Form2. Their terminator style resin based laser prints are way higher resolution, so you don’t get the blockiness that you see in the additive 3d print process.

You can see how blocky the print is on the clean / top side of the print (the Dremel printer makes up the plastic model like a wedding cake getting layered). The bottom side with all the extra support pieces that I had to cut off after is much rougher. Another benefit of the Formlabs printer would be no annoying structural supports to cut off.

Like the disco light above, what’s nice about this is that it’s a direct copy of my specific bike. If you’ve got a custom ride, scanning it with the Structure Sensor and then printing it out on something nice like the Formlabs printer would mean a smooth, accurate scale model of your particular machine.

What would be even cooler would be getting my hands on a large format 3d printer, then I’d be making accurate 3d models of fairing pieces and going to town on them in 3d design software. I still want to remake a sports bike with textured dragon scale fairings!

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It’s Time For You To Go

The ZPD: something all those people critical of
teaching have never heard of, but it’s where
teachers live all day every day.

If your teacher-craft is good you are a natural differentiator, going to great lengths to provide each student with what they need. Teachers are the pressure point between a system trying to do things as cheaply and generically as possible and individual students all learning from their own context. That stretch is why replacing teachers with elearning systems or creating enormous classrooms will result in a substantial drop in pedagogical effectiveness. You need a trained professional to attempt to bridge this enormous gap in a reasonably sized class, at least if you want it done well.

In an optional course like computer engineering this is stretched to extremes. In the same class I will have functionally illiterate students who verge on being developmentally delayed sitting next to gifted students who so aggressively pursue the work that they are operating well beyond the expectations of the grade or even the curriculum. I’m the mechanism that tries to make sure both those students (and the other twenty-two in the room) are all in their zone of proximal development, and yes, it’s exhausting at the best of times.

On top of that, because I’m teaching high school students I get to attempt this stunt with kids whose brains haven’t yet developed the ability to forecast the consequences of their actions. When their amygdalas finally develop in their early 20s their executive functions will come online and their post-secondary instructors will get to enjoy a more complete human being, but we never see them in high school. Most of the general public are also oblivious to the brain research teachers keep up on.

Because all of that isn’t enough, Ontario also likes to Victory Lap students, allowing graduates who have already finished to come back for another year at great public expense. The system used to enjoy the extra financial injection that these students brought with them, but cuts have meant that schools aren’t being funded completely to support these students properly any more. This week I’m spending more attention on two victory lappers than I am on my other 70 odd students who are actually supposed to be there.

I’ve had mixed experience with Victory Lappers. In some cases that extra year was just what they needed in terms of maturity to prepare them for post-secondary life, but too many times it’s a privileged kid enjoying an easy year in a fish tank they’ve outgrown instead of taking the big step into the unknown. That this is now happening in an unfunded and overly stretched system is causing stress cracks to appear where they didn’t before. Maybe a way forward in this is to only allow students with individual education plans the opportunity to victory lap, but whatever we do, it needs to have been done several years ago. If we could stop playing politics and actually manage Ontario’s education system effectively, we could find cost savings in something like this immediately.

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The Magic of Motorcycles

My son is a pretty shy guy, but he’s an instant celebrity on the bike. When we ride home kids who might not otherwise acknowledge him want a wave. The bike seems to produce fame on demand!

On my way in this morning on the Concours a little girl went running down the sidewalk next to me waving and giggling insanely. That kind of thing doesn’t happen when I’m driving the mini-van. Kids’ eyes are drawn to motorbikes like they are to anything awesome.

Two hundred metres further down the road another kid riding his BMX bike gave me a serious nod and his gaze lingered. Perhaps that’s the magic of motorcycles, they are the adult evolution of what we loved to do as children. Kids can see themselves on a motorcycle because it’s the technological enhancement of a device they are already familiar and in love with. Adults in cages have no analog for children, but motorcycles are immediately familiar.

Unlike the desperately-seeking-cool types on cruisers, I’m always happy to grin back and wave.

You have to wonder how hard we work on kids to scare them out of getting around on two wheels as adults when it’s such an intrinsic love for us when we’re children. For the lucky few who find themselves back on two wheels as adults the magic can keep happening for the rest of your life.

Smart Helmets

Part of my day job involves building virtual and augmented reality sets for classrooms. I have built dozens of systems and have tried all sorts of different combinations of hardware, we even build software that uses this tech. I get virtual and augmented reality and I’m looking forward this fighter pilot technology finding its way into motorcycle helmets.

I saw a tweet today that suggests it’s already here in the Cross Helmet. 360° peripheral awareness is a great idea that will no doubt save lives, and having hands free navigational information is another valuable safety feature, but I have a questions about this revolutionary lid.

Most of the articles I’ve read about the Cross Helmet are by tech websites that have a hard time containing their enthusiasm about disrupting existing industries. They typically suggest that motorcycle helmets haven’t changed in decades and that they are low tech, unimaginative things created by Luddites. It’ll take the blinding talents of a technology company to interrupt those conservative curmudgeons in the helmet industry (sorry, sometimes the hyperbole around high-tech companies gets a bit tiresome).

Helmets aren’t supposed to be an infotainment system, they supposed to be a light-weight, effective protective item that operates in incredibly difficult circumstances. Helmet manufacturers have thrown everything imaginable at this problem, producing carbon fibre helmets and pushing materials engineering to the limit in creating the lightest, most protective lids possible. They’ve also applied modern aerodynamic analysis to their products, producing quieter, less buffeting protection than ever before. To call them uninspired and backwards simply isn’t true.

The most concerning thing about the Cross Helmet isn’t the wiz-bang technology in the thing, it’s the thing itself. That is a massive lid. When was the last time you needed two hands to hold on to your helmet? This size is a function of all the technology crammed into it. A heads up display, rear facing camera, wireless connectivity, communications and the battery needed to power all that stuff weighs down the helmet and makes it big. The actual weight of it appears to be a mystery. Modern helmets weigh between one and two kilos, with the heaviest ones being mechanical flip top items with built in sun visors. I can’t find a weight listed for the Cross Helmet anywhere, not even on their website.

… that’s all you get for technical details.

I’m guessing, based on the size and tech in the thing that it’ll come in at over twice the weight of what an average helmet does, which doesn’t make it a very good helmet. On top of that, you’re looking at a slab sided thing that looks like it’ll catch cross winds like a sail. You might be able to see behind you and get navigational details, but you’ll be stopping often because your neck can’t take it any more.

I get that the first prototype of a new design is going to have problems; this is the worst smart helmet you’ll ever see because it’s the first one. As the tech gets smaller and designs improve, a smart helmet becomes a much more attractive idea, but I’m disinclined to dive into a (very) expensive helmet that is more of a concept than a usable thing.

Here is a list of some helmets currently on the market with their weights:

Arai DT-X 1619 grams (and check out the many technical details shared)
Roof Boxer Helmet 1650 grams (again with many technical details shared)
Roof Boxer Carbon 1550 grams (the lightest transformable/mechanical helmet I can find)
Nexx Carbon 1219 grams (the lightest helmet I can find)
Shark Evoline 1960 grams (the heaviest helmet I could find)

The lightest of them use every materials engineering trick in the book to produce helmets that meet stringent modern safety standards while also being comfortable, aerodynamic and long lasting. They are anything but an old-school product, Discovery Channel.

The Roof Carbon is the lightest transformable / mechanical helmet on the market. It’s 100 grams lighter than the standard Roof Boxer helmet – that’s what you get with carbon, 100 grams. The helmet industry is playing a game of grams, aerodynamics and safety effectiveness in a state of the art way.

If you put a 2000 gram limit on your smart helmet and required it to retain the aerodynamics and size of current lids, it would be in the vicinity of current helmets in terms of usefulness. I doubt it’s possible to cram cameras, heads up displays, communications and batteries into a helmet using today’s tech, but someday soon? Perhaps.

Under those awesome graphics are state of the art materials engineering resulting in unprecedented protection.

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Stripping a BMW Airhead

On the shortest day of the year, as the sun set in the middle of the afternoon, I found myself driving into the country to help Jeff the motorcycle Jedi lift the engine out of his BMW airhead cafe racer project.

Since it came out of the shed it had been hibernating in for over a decade, the old R90 has been stripped down to its bits and pieces. Jeff is going to get the frame powder coated which was why I was there to help get that big air cooled lump out.

A BMW R90 stripped down to its component parts emphasizes just what a simple and elegant machine this is. We were both able to easily lift the boxer engine out of the frame. I doubt it weighed much more than a hundred pounds. Even with all the pieces laid out on tables, the BMW seems to be made of less parts than you’d need to put together a working motorcycle, let alone a touring model.

So far the only new piece purchased is the cafe racer seat in the photo. Jeff intends to take a sawzall to the frame over the holiday break and then industrially clean all of the components before reassembling the cafe resurrected R90.

With the parts laid out it doesn’t look like there’s enough there to build a motorbike. The R90 is an elegantly simple machine.

The home-made motorcycle stand is doing a fine job on its first big project.

That air cooled boxer engine is a piece of industrial art!

A naked R90t frame prior to some modification.

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Authoring Your Digital Self

I’ve written about owning your digital self in previous posts, but how that ownership happens is a function of how capable you are of authoring it. Developing that authorship requires freedom of choice, you can’t make full use of any medium if you don’t have creative control.

I’m currently working toward my qualifications as a computer technology teacher, and this technical ability that allows for creative, deep use of technology is on my mind. The magic of being technically skilled is misunderstanding that I want to move past. Teaching technology means freeing up our access to it, and expecting anyone who wants to use it to be competent with it. 21st Century skills need to be as ubiquitous as literacy or numeracy skills.

When we are teaching writing, we don’t prescribe the type of writing tool or the type of paper. If a particular pen or type of paper encourages a student to write more, we’re overjoyed to use it. As soon as we can, we have students writing about their experiences using their own style of forming letters (within readability parameters). We encourage individualization of this complicated process in order to assist students in internalizing these complex skills; their ability to form letters is one of the most unique things they do as a person.

What we do with edtech is the equivalent of only showing students cards with words on them and then declaring them literate when they can string together a sentence of words. We don’t allow them to personalize their learning, and so make it impersonal, simplistic and ultimately forgettable.

A school computer is about as inflexible and impersonal as a computer can be made to be. If we’re going to recognize 21st Century learning as complex, inter-related skill sets that need to be nurtured and developed over time (like literacy itself), then we need to look at how we are presenting digital learning opportunities in education.

Our students currently teach themselves 21st Century skills outside education. When they come to school they meet panicky (usually older) teachers and administrators who fear the magic box of lights and discourage any use of them that aren’t understandable parallels of familiar analogue activities (word processing/type writer, powerpoint/slide show, etc). Activities that don’t have a pre-digital analogue are morally wrong / intellectually bankrupt / a waste of time… pick one and frown. Edtech is designed around this philosophy of belittling digital change, and ignoring the development of teaching in technology.

appears every time we open up IE, which forgets
all your settings when you log out again.. #edtechfail

If we want our students to be able to author their digital selves now and in the future, we MUST free up the technology and allow students to customize their digital experiences. The broken installation of Internet Explorer on my board computers (the only browser of choice) doesn’t cut it. Browser choice (complete with apps, mods and other personalization) makes all the difference in developing a skilled approach to accessing the internet. It should remember your customizations as well.

This flexibility needs to go deep into software. A student who has had access to multiple operating systems (Windows, OSx and Linux minimally) immediately has a better sense of how computers work because they are able to develop some perspective around how OSes make use of the hardware they are on, not to mention the software ecosystems each possess.

A truly agile edtech plan also breaks apart the hardware monotony found in every board. The minilab goes a long way toward addressing this while also addressing the software miasma. The only time in their lives they will ever be forced to use rows of identical desktops is in school (or a 20th Century factory). Preparing students for an IT environment that hasn’t existed for over a decade is positively backward looking

Educational technology is not about ease of administration for the board’s IT department, and it’s not about fear mongering about privacy that never existed, it’s about teaching students real, usable skills that will serve them in the future.

It would be nice if we started doing that.

Todd Blubaugh’s Too Far Gone

It took me almost a month to slowly work my way through this complex piece of media. I originally came across an excerpt from it in Bike Magazine and it was so moving that I immediately purchased it. I’m generally not a fan of coffee table books. I’ve always thought of them as flash over substance and a decoration for yuppies to strategically place in their perfect living rooms to impress guests. It took some powerful writing in that excerpt to overpower my prejudice about this format, and I’m glad it did.

Writing is only a small part of this ‘book’, and calling it a book isn’t really fair to it. This is a piece of art; it feels more like you’re walking through an emotionally powerful art exhibit. The author, Todd Blubaugh, was a photographer by trade, so this all starts to make sense as you fall into his aesthetic. Between the pages of powerful and technically complex photography you find short pieces of narrative text that pin down the corners of Todd’s six month quest for meaning after his parent’s unexpected death in a car accident.

If you’ve lost a parent in unexpected circumstances with things left unsaid, Todd’s meditative ride around the continental U.S. will raise a lot of your own ghosts. This was one of the reasons I savoured it so slowly. After reading each emotional upper cut, you’re immersed in several pages of photography of life on the road. Working in black and white on a film camera, Todd’s images tend toward startlingly frank personal portraits of the people that he meets on his travels. Todd must be a particularly disarming fellow as he’s able to catch people with almost animal like honesty – were I able to do this, I’d be much more interested in human portraiture. As it is, it’s a joy to see a master like this at work.

As you travel with Todd further into his trajectory away from the things that anchor most people to their lives (job, family), he surprises you with artifacts from his parent’s lives. At moments like this the book feels more like a scrapbook or family album, with news articles about his Dad’s tour in Vietnam and his mother’s paintings offering you further insight into the scope of his loss. The letter from his Dad at the end of the book had me in tears.

Todd tells two entwined and complex stories in Too Far Gone. His disassociation from the habitual, stationary life that most people live reaches a climax in a conversation with an old sailor that will leave you, along with Todd himself, staring into the abyss. Free from the responsibilities most of us labour under, Todd is able to focus on his loss with such a startling clarity that it will shake you.

This book pressed a lot of buttons for me. As a photographer I greatly enjoyed Todd’s eye, even (and especially because?) it is so different from my own. Todd’s relationship with motorcycling (old Harleys and biker culture) is also about as different from mine as can be, yet the sense of brotherhood still felt strong because Todd is never once preachy or superior about his infatuation. Instead, his honest love of motorbikes comes across loudly, and that is something we share.

As someone who lost a parent and experienced that same phone call out of the blue, Todd’s experience is something that cuts me deep. In coming to understand Todd’s relationship with his dad I can’t help but reflect on my own difficult and distant relationship with my father. I lost the parent that I most identified with and have a challenging relationship with the other one, but Todd’s parent’s were still together and he lost both at once. It’s the things left unsaid that gnaw at you afterwards, and losing both parents together while they are still paragons in your life is something I can only imagine.

We all lose our parents eventually. If you haven’t yet, this book will give you an emotionally powerful idea of how it feels, and how someone has worked through the scars of that experience. If they’re already gone, your sympathy will create powerful echoes.

There are a few motorcycling themed books that plumb philosophical depths. Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Shop Class As Soulcraft in particular have spoken intelligently and deeply about the meditative nature of motorcycling. Too Far Gone is a multi-media, large format book that takes you to the same place through different mediums, but it does it while also offering an emotional intelligence that is hard to find anywhere else. Immerse yourself in this book, you won’t be disappointed.

What you need and nothing else. After six months on the road Todd looks as homeless as he is, and has to make a decision…

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Three Wheeled Dreams

Once again I’m thinking about a Morgan3. I found out that Ontario is offering a ten year pilot program for three wheeled vehicles, meaning you can drive one here now. The federal requirements for three wheeled vehicles are just borrowed from other jurisdictions where they are already allowed, so the Morgan should be good to go.

It’s probably the Polaris Slingshot and the like that have forced this to finally happen, but what I really want is that Morgan3. With a big air cooled twin out front and a super wide stance, the Morgan3 is a silly amount of fun to drive and looks like an instant classic rather than the offspring of the USS Enterprise and a TIE fighter. If you want to go fast, get an even number of wheels, but if you want something with character, go odd, and the Morgan3 is nothing if not full of character.

Of course Ontario can’t do anything without making it pointlessly political and difficult, so anyone driving a three wheeled vehicle has to act like it’s a motorcycle and is required to wear a helmet. Like I said, pointlessly officious, it’s the Ontario way.

At least there are some stylish (though probably illegal) options for piloting the Morgan3. A couple of World War 2 inspired fighter helmets along with aviator jackets and we’d be ready to roll.

As it happens, the Morgan factory is but one hundred miles north of us when we’re on holiday in the UK and offers rentals. That might warrant a day trip! There is another option even closer to where we’re staying. Berrybrook is in Exeter, just down the road from the cottage we’re at.

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Roof Helmets: enjoying the cultural dissonance

I’m a big fan of Roof Helmets. It’s the best lid I’ve ever owned, and one of the only ones that offers me full face protection when I want it and the freedom to easily go open. I’ll often start a ride open faced, flip it down to handle the wind when I’m out on the road at speed and then flip it open again when I slow down, even if it’s just riding through a town.

I saw my first Roof Helmet when Jo Sinnott wore one on her Wild Camping series through Europe. It took some maneuvering to get one to Canada, but it’s been my go-to helmet since I landed one a couple of seasons ago.

I keep a close eye on Roof these days. Their newly redesigned Desmo hemlets are on my wish list, and the new Carbon Boxxer is a work of industrial art.

Roof is selling that new Carbon hard, but if you think it’s your typical helmet commercial you’ve forgotten how French they are. See if you can keep up with the cultural dissonance, make sure to hang in to the end:

I’m wincing at the hooliganism at the beginning, but you start to have faith in the rider and end up letting them ride well outside of sensible because of your increasing faith in their skill. Then they suddenly get into tiff with a couple at a cafe, and things go from there. The reveal at the end? Brilliant!

I don’t think many Bikers for Trump alt-right Harley types will enjoy it, but I suspect that doesn’t bother Roof too much. It worked on me.

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