Schedule
Including brief notes about the session |
Class Pictures
Click Image for Photo Album |
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1: Saturday, October 25, 2003:
- 10:00 - 4:00: Workshop
- 10:00 - 11:00: Class #0
Selecting Aperture & Focal Length
- 11:00 - Noon: Class #1:
Introduction, Overview & Rough Grinding
Good turnout and a good start. A brisk day,
only two folks choose to grind outdoors.
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2: Saturday, November 15, 2003:
- 10:00 - 4:00: Workshop
- 11:00 - Noon: Class #2: Fine Grinding
Good turnout and good progress by all
students, both grinders and polishers are
moving steadily towards completion.
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3: Saturday, December 13, 2003:
- 10:00 - 4:00: Workshop
- 11:00 - Noon: Class #3: Polishing
We poured four laps and one lap disk, which
is a good indication of the great progress this
class is making on their mirrors.
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4: Sunday, January 25, 2004:
- 10:00 - 4:00: Workshop
- 11:00 - Noon: Class #4: Figuring
Plenty of work on polishing and figuring and
our first mirror for this curse was completed.
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5: Saturday, February 21, 2004 in Ludlow,
MA
- 10:00 - 4:00: Workshop
- 11:00 - Noon: Class #5: Testing
We had a small turnout due to weather, but finished
another mirror.
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6: Saturday, March 20, 2004:
- 10:00 - 4:00: Workshop
- 11:00 - 1:00: Class #6: Constructing a Telescope
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Registration was strong and we filled up well before
class started. We enrolled 17 students, intentionally "over
booking" as we know there will be some dropout, and as the next
section shows, it was a little more than desired. Our goal is to
have 14 to 15 students engaged, while the attendance analysis
indicates only 11 or 12 actually were.
Attendance was strong this year, helped by moderate
weather and enthusiastic students and instructors. Note the
slightly lower attendance for the one Sunday session (Jan 25),
and significantly lower attendance for the session held in
Ludlow (Feb 21).
| Category |
Oct 25 |
Nov 15 |
Dec 13 |
Jan 25 |
Feb 21 |
Mar 20 |
Average |
| Students |
12 |
13 |
10 |
8 |
5 |
10 |
9.7 |
| Instructors |
5 |
7 |
7 |
7 |
6 |
7 |
6.5 |
| Total |
17 |
20 |
17 |
15 |
11 |
17 |
16.2 |
Students this class, those that become engaged in
the activity, were very enthusiastic, and generally more
knowledgeable about mirror making than our average class. It
was a very good group to work with.
Instructors were excellent this year. We had great
support from club members, no issues with understaffing, and
good teamwork. Thank you very much!
Completions were disappointing, with only two
mirrors actually completed this year by the end of class. We
have 4 people who are in final polishing, and as we will
work them informally in the coming months, I expect this
total to increase, we still are far below our objective of
achieving a 50% completion rate during class. The
instructors all worked at emphasizing the need to make
steady progress and work at home to get mirrors done, but
this meat with limited success. Completion rate is one
of two key issues to work on between classes.
Facilities continue to be a big issue for us.
Thanks to Tom Gorka, we have a number of facility
improvement for this year with better work surfaces, windows
and doors in our tow locations. Dave Prowten has completed
work on a test tunnel, and Dave Kelly will provide us with
test head before convention. Dave Prowten will also work on
a video display setup for this tester, which will help
instruction and throughput immensely. Thanks to both of them
for this great work.
However, raw square feet of usable space is our big
issue, and I believe does somewhat impact our completion
rate. Even though we have restricted class sizes, all too
often we are literally elbow-to-elbow in our workspaces. In
the last class, we had a student ready to start polishing,
and he could not, because there was no suitable clean space
to do this. We need to continue to work on making more and
better space for this class in the long term
Cleanup after class was a big issue in the
previous year -- we did not do this as well as we should,
and received justifiable complaints from other club members.
This year, we instituted a more formal clean-up time, and a
"pack-in, pack-out" trash policy, and we succeeded very well
in leaving club facilities in a clean and orderly state
after each class.
Summary It was a fun year with a good class and no
weather related cancellations. The signup list for next year
is almost full, so demand remains high and we will work to
deliver the best mirror making instruction we can to as many
people as we can cram in our limited space.
