Guided Question #6

We have seen what you have been doing over the summer, here is your last chance to reflect on what the experience has meant to you, what you will take with you to the classroom and perhaps how the experience could be made better or more effective.
   I feel that my expectations coming into this experience were achieved as I definitely have many answers to help address the question of when math is used in the real world.  I saw numerous examples of people using a wide range of math skills from basic unit conversion to multi-variable calculus.  I appreciated Clipper going beyond their daily job duties to help me learn more about the industry and give me projects to work on.  The challenge in this type of experience is coming up with enough projects that are math oriented.  Its difficult for an outsider to come into an industry and just “do math”.  I know the people I worked with at Clipper were conscious of this and did their best to help make this experience worthwhile.  I truly did enjoy my experience here, it was fun applying my math skills to something that was real!

Guided Question #5

How can your business (or others) be more involved in your classroom? What can you or your school do to engage students with the real world? What can the real world (our externship hosts) do to engage students in their world?
From the moment I stepped foot inside the huge manufacturing area of Clipper I thought this would be a great place for students to take a field trip.  Not only is the massive size of the generator a sight to see, but also the engineering that goes into these turbines is very evident.  At the very least I intend to have a speaker from Clipper come into my classroom to help educate students on the wind industry.  I will probably do this as a lead into the project I am working on, but I think the classes that aren't working on the project could benefit as well.  I've heard that Kirkwood is installing a few wind turbines to use as a turbine mechanic training facility.  It would be great to be able to work with Kirkwook in the future and be able to use actual data.
I've spoken with someone in the community outreach office here about looking into if there are any projects or tasks that someone does here at Clipper that students in my classroom could do instead.  I have no idea if such a task exists, such as data entry or some kind of data analysis, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.  It would be a win-win situatuation, Clipper gets free labor and students get real-world experiences.  I would be so excited if it actually worked, so we'll see.

Update

The past week I've been working on an interesting project.  We were looking into why turbines weren't de-rating based on an algorithm created to de-rate a turbine when an inverter temperature reached a certain level so that the GCU would lower its power and the inverter temperature would decrease.   I pulled data from a site where this issue was occuring and looked at the three variables involved in the algorithm: Ambient temperature, Inverter Temperature (there are four of them) and GCU real power in kW (there are two of them).  They wanted me to find the relationship between the three variables to see if they need to change the parameters of the algorithm. 
After compiling and organazing the data I researched how to do a three-variable regression using Excel, where Ambient Temp and GCU power are independent variables and the Inverter Temp is the dependent variable.  I went into this not having any idea how it would turn out and skeptical I could actually pull it off! 
But to my surprise Excel came up with the summary data and I was able to determine the coeffecients and y-intercept for my equation.  A coworker looked at it and was surprised it was linear, so I decided to analyze it a bit more.  (Also the R squared value was in the upper 90's, another surprise!)
I ran the data using the regression function and then created a scatter plot to visually see how the actual Inverter Temperature compared to the Regression Inverter Temperature.  Here were the results for one of the turbines:

Once again I was surprised to see that the regression fit the data so well.  I gave myself a pat on the back that day.  :)
I decided to then use the same regression and use it for other sites to see if I would get similar results.  I did.
My supervisor asked me if I could write up some instructions for how I performed the multi-variable regression so that they could use it again later after I leave. 
Didn't I just mention this in my last blog?  Students may need to not only know how to do a process but also communicate how to do it others.  Case in point!

Guided Question #4

"Now that you are one month in, how do you see this experience changing your classroom? Think in terms of what you teach and how you teach. How will your students know something has changed? Begin to articulate your thoughts on how to bring a PBL into your classroom."

In my previous posting I mentioned how I can already see this experience changing my classroom, especially how I teach.  Working at Clipper has helped me realize that students need problem solving skills, they don't need to simply know rules and proerties.  Those rules and properties  are certianly still important, but more importantly they need to know how and when to apply these and can they communicate their process effectively to someone else.  When students complain about showing their work my response has always been that it's now always about the final product but about the process and the ability to communicate their process.  This experience at Clipper has only strengthened my argument.  I've had instances where I've created a chart or a spreadsheet and then needed to explain to someone how and why I created what I did so that when I leave they are able to recreate it using data from later dates.  If I simply gave them my product but was unable to explain how I created it, after I left it may become useless or someone would have to spend valuabe time trying to figure out what my steps were.
I would certainly like to bring in more projects into my classroom to incorporate various skills students will need such as learning to work cooperatively, organization, problem solving, real-world application, etc.  I still struggle with this because it seems like an in-depth real-world math project can often turn into a science or business project which then time is spent teaching non-math concepts.  We know time is precious and there are A LOT of standards to cover for the year.  I know there has got to be a way to balance projects with traditional teaching (which I believe does still have value in math classrooms), I am just still trying to figure out how to do it.

Guided Question #3

Now that I have been in my externship for a few weeks and experienced a lot of the day to day operations within my department I have realized that my many of my students are not prepared for the real world.  I try to envision them working on some of these projects and unfortunately I know some of my students would struggle.  They wouldn't necessarily struggle because of the actual math content, anyone can be taught that, they would struggle with critically thinking and engaging in true mental activity.  I don't blame them, I blame myself and the education system as a whole.  I need to put down the spoon and start getting them to think!
When addressing the 21st Century Skills needed, the two that would be essential for someone working in my position at Clipper Wind are "Employability" and "Technology Literacy".  To be successful here it is essential to have the ability to work productively in teams, communicate effectively, think innovatively and solve problems creatively.  My favorite moments here so far are when a few people in my department gather at the whiteboard to brainstorm a problem one of us is working on.  They recognize the importance of bouncing ideas off other people and collaboration.  Here are some results of a couple of these "gathering of the minds" to help each other solve various problems:

Notice all the math involved!  I took these pictures to help answer the question "When are we ever going to need this?" (By the way I did get the OK to take pictures of this) Students would also need Technology Literacy in a job like this one.  The department I work in uses various software programs to model and simulate various data within a wind turbine.  They identify trends and forecast possibilities to help reduce down-time-between-faults. 
I've already learned a lot from this experience, but so far the most important thing I'll take with me is the drive to help prepare students for the working world.  I work with some very intelligent people here who amaze me with their creativity and ability to think critically and I want my students to be able to do the same.

Guided Question #2

After meeting with my supervisor regarding the experience so far, we decided to get going on some more "mathy" projects.  I'm working in the PHM department where they work closely with RMDC in trying to increase wind turbine availability.  Their role is to take on a more proactive approach and detect issues with turbines that can be dealt with before there is a major fault that needs to shut the turbine down, therefore decreasing availability.  This is where I see a lot of math being used!  Currently I'm working on collecting a set of data from random turbines to help establish a norm.  To be honest, these turbines are so complicated I can't even competely describe what the numbers I'm dealing with relate to, but its something to do with the the high speed cartridges that are in each of the four generators.  There is data that is measuring the temperature vs. time and using a co-variance matrix (5 variable) a t-squared value is derived.  I'm basically pulling those t-squared values from random turbines to find a norm value.  The goal is that if we can determine a norm value than eventually they want to create a program that will recognize when a turbine is approaching a value outside the norm so they can fix the problem sooner. 

What am I doing here?

Well I am definitely keeping busy here at Clipper.  They have a lot of projects for me to work on so its never a dull moment.  I'll admit its nice to get a break from lesson planning and grading and get to work on other skills. 
I'm not really used to cubicle life :

If I were here long term I'd definetly need to decorate and add a personal touch, but since I'm only here for 6 weeks I'll just deal with the pictureless walls.  I'm surrounded by great people that have excellent senses of humor, so its adds a little fun to the day.

The project I'm currently working on is holding up the blade they keep out front:

But lucky for my arms I found a solution for that:

The first two weeks I've been mostly working on a project to help them automate their reporting system.  Currently they are pulling their data from a raw data program and then creating reports in Excel to show relationships betwen various items.  For my deptartment these reports are focusing on turbine availability and downtime.  So I've been creating links between their Excel data and graphs with Power Point, which is what they present to executives, to help streamline the process of formatting.  Its been a positive experience so far and I look forward to getting into more projects that I'll be able to take back into my math classroom and share with the students.