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I thought this was pretty cool.
http://www.chillicothegazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050626/SPORTS/506260317/1006
http://www.chillicothegazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050626/SPORTS/506260317/1006
Fun with air and science
1 - 13 of 13 Posts
Joined
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For those who don't want to click....
Not that long ago, Jim Benini's passion was classic Buicks.
"Jon traded in his Buick and bought a hovercraft," Benini remembers. "We bumped into each other and he told me what he was up to. He said it might be a fun project for my students to build an entry-level craft."
Benini, a technology education teacher a rural Parish Hill High School in Chaplin, Conn., thought it sounded like the perfect project to challenge his students with.
He found plans to build a standard hovercraft on the Internet and purchased them for his class.
"On the very last day of school, we got it up and flying," Benini said. "An hour and a half after school was out, I had 12 students out on the front baseball field flying it and nobody wanted to go home.
That August, Benini's team from Parish Hill competed in its first hovercraft racing event on the Connecticut River.
Saturday afternoon, nearly three years after trading boat-sized cars for car-sized boats - or crafts, actually - Parish Hill made it's way to hovercraft racing's equivalent of a national championship at Hoverally 2005 on the Scioto River.
To make the trip from Connecticut to Chillicothe, Benini enlisted the help of Rich and fellow friend Pete Gardell. The duo modified their pickups to be able to carry five total hovercraft, stacked on top of each other.
To man the crafts and work on them, Benini brought four students, freshman James Garland, sophomore Shawn Durant and juniors Jason Lyford and Ryan Beaumont.
Through developing a program around what is a hobby to most hover enthusiasts, Benini has been able to teach courses on science, physics and technology to his students.
Benini became the first teacher in the United States to write a class curriculum for building entry level - the beginner class of the six Hoverclub levels in which engines can be no larger than 12.5 horsepower - hovercrafts.
"Three years later, the thing is pretty much done," he said. "It's up on the Internet on the national high school website at discoverhover.organd it will soon be on the Hoverclub site in a month or two."
Benini hopes that his work will spread, not only to schools in his home state, but across the country as well.
"Any teacher who wants to teach how these things work, there's a curriculum right there," he said. "Then it's up to the teacher to buy the plans and build the craft. This is not a manual of how to build the craft or how to fly it, just how they work and the science and physics that go along with it."
At Parish Hill, Benini's students are now turning out a new craft in just about 12 weeks.
"They're a tiny school, but they've got a lot of wallop," Rich said. "And a lot of quality."
It's pretty interesting, wish I had that at my High School. Then we wouldn't have caused so much trouble. Don't even ask me to say what we did as I think I'd get into too much trouble with 'the man'...
Not that long ago, Jim Benini's passion was classic Buicks.
"Jon traded in his Buick and bought a hovercraft," Benini remembers. "We bumped into each other and he told me what he was up to. He said it might be a fun project for my students to build an entry-level craft."
Benini, a technology education teacher a rural Parish Hill High School in Chaplin, Conn., thought it sounded like the perfect project to challenge his students with.
He found plans to build a standard hovercraft on the Internet and purchased them for his class.
"On the very last day of school, we got it up and flying," Benini said. "An hour and a half after school was out, I had 12 students out on the front baseball field flying it and nobody wanted to go home.
That August, Benini's team from Parish Hill competed in its first hovercraft racing event on the Connecticut River.
Saturday afternoon, nearly three years after trading boat-sized cars for car-sized boats - or crafts, actually - Parish Hill made it's way to hovercraft racing's equivalent of a national championship at Hoverally 2005 on the Scioto River.
To make the trip from Connecticut to Chillicothe, Benini enlisted the help of Rich and fellow friend Pete Gardell. The duo modified their pickups to be able to carry five total hovercraft, stacked on top of each other.
To man the crafts and work on them, Benini brought four students, freshman James Garland, sophomore Shawn Durant and juniors Jason Lyford and Ryan Beaumont.
Through developing a program around what is a hobby to most hover enthusiasts, Benini has been able to teach courses on science, physics and technology to his students.
Benini became the first teacher in the United States to write a class curriculum for building entry level - the beginner class of the six Hoverclub levels in which engines can be no larger than 12.5 horsepower - hovercrafts.
"Three years later, the thing is pretty much done," he said. "It's up on the Internet on the national high school website at discoverhover.organd it will soon be on the Hoverclub site in a month or two."
Benini hopes that his work will spread, not only to schools in his home state, but across the country as well.
"Any teacher who wants to teach how these things work, there's a curriculum right there," he said. "Then it's up to the teacher to buy the plans and build the craft. This is not a manual of how to build the craft or how to fly it, just how they work and the science and physics that go along with it."
At Parish Hill, Benini's students are now turning out a new craft in just about 12 weeks.
"They're a tiny school, but they've got a lot of wallop," Rich said. "And a lot of quality."
It's pretty interesting, wish I had that at my High School. Then we wouldn't have caused so much trouble. Don't even ask me to say what we did as I think I'd get into too much trouble with 'the man'...
1 - 13 of 13 Posts
