By Robert Nowinski
Advanced Engineering is one of the classes taught by Mr. Kaiser, and it’s a continuation of Intro to Engineering and Architecture. I interviewed 3 Seniors who had or are in the class: Ruslan Spirkin, Matthew Fontes, and Anthony De Wald.
The class isn’t super hard and it’s easy to find things to like about it. According to fellow student, Ruslan Spirkin, “Kaiser gives a lot of creative freedom. [You have] a lot of time in the class and if he sees you working, he can be light on deadlines. [It’s] more about effort than completion, [and there are] lots of resources.” The class has everything you need, like the cardboard for prototypes, 3D printers, computers, and electronic components and wires.
According to the interviewed students, there are many reasons to take the class. Ruslan Spirkin appreciates the “weighted GPA and the teacher.” Matthew Fontes commented that “it’s much more self guided, but if you can work with it it’s very nice.” So if you can work well without a ton of guidance you will do well, but you still have the ability to ask for help when needed.
As with all classes, there are downsides. Matthew Fontes suggested that “a little more clear assignment descriptions” would be helpful. But overall, you can ask questions if you need to.
As with all Kaiser classes, you have many group projects as well as personal projects. According to Anthony De Wald, “the bridge design was the most fun. We built a bridge and stress tested it.” There are also things such as the train project which was done on Fusion 360, a mini solar powered car, and the normal personal projects that you do in all of his classes.
You can learn many skills and software in the class. I learned LegoCAD, as well as Tinker and Fusion. According to Anthony, “Fusion 360 software [teaches you] applicable skills.” Fusion is used for many things such as renders and creation of items.
Recently, the class made wind turbines. One of our teams, composed of Jameel Saleh (12), Xavier Ervin (12), Sophia Bogard (12), Ruslan Spirkin (12) and Logan Baeta (11), went to the state championship. They are also currently working on rockets that have computer chips in them. The chips will work as sensors that will measure altitude and distance. These will be shown off at the STEAM festival in May.
Overall, if you like other classes such as Computer Science or Robotics, you wouldn’t be too bad off taking the class, especially if you liked Intro to Engineering and Architecture.
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