Tech class success!
For the last five or so years, I’ve had a “pocket bike” in the shop that continued to stump every group of Grade 10 Tech students who tried to get it running.
Each semester a new group of eager students would dive into diagnosis and repair with high hopes of burning around the track, only to give up or run out of time before they could determine the reason why it wouldn’t run. I’ll admit, as optimistic as I am about student ability, I did have my doubts that the little 50cc bike would ever run again.
But this semester a couple of hard-working students, Ryan Lee and Nico Van Der Hoven finally prevailed. After working for two weeks to check for spark, confirm good engine compression, repair a bent frame and persevere on a stubborn recoil starter which needed constant reassembly, they succeeded in getting it working!
The celebration with arms raised and shouts of “Yeah, we did it! We did it!!” was heard well past the Design and Tech classroom! Well done boys! But no promises of tearing up the track just yet….
Don Dyck Steinmann, Design & Technology Teacher
