My new group of F1 students were able to begin designing cars and objects within an hour. However, I found Autodesk Inventor to be much more user friendly. My initial thought was “here we go again, another 6 months hard work to learn a new program…”. At the end of last year our school swapped over to Autodesk Inventor. We explored the program together and the design process together, they became the experts. The great thing about this was my F1 students and I became learning partners. It took me and the students I was teaching almost 6 months to master the controls, with many frustrations and hold ups. I am no computer whiz, so when I first looked at the program I experienced quite a few moments of “how on earth am I going to learn all this”. I was handed a huge folder which was to become my “bible”. When I was first asked to teach this class our school was using a 3D modelling program called CATIA. Other students learn to stand by their work and how to talk about their strengths. For some it is how to speak to someone in a professional way, for others it is how to design the fastest F1 car in the state. Every student that goes through the F1 program learns something different. This remains my best teaching moment despite having taken a team through to the National Finals and other various triumphs.

This team went on to win Best Portfolio in the state.

The biggest triumph I have experienced in this program was when a student in Year 9 (who never did homework, never followed anything through to its conclusion and had never been away on a school camp before) stayed up until 4am the night before the competition to complete the team’s portfolio. I have run this program with high achieving students, integration students and disengaged students. Most schools run the ‘F1 in Schools’ program as an extracurricular activity but the program has so many benefits to the students that our Principal gives us class time to run the program.

I have been teaching a year 9 elective class called ‘F1 in Schools’ for the past three years. This week’s Guest Blogger is Renee Howell from Kyabram P-12 College

Autodesk inventor 2015 education