How to make a stencil kit in software for a wooden 3-foot long bathroom pass for San Jose schools

GlowingBlueMist wrote, on Fri, 12 Sep 2014 11:59:18 -0500:

When I asked, the answer came back that *all* the teachers use some sort of *huge* bathroom pass that the students need to carry.

Some literally use a toilet plunger; others use a long plastic pipe.

Apparently, the system is that the pass is so large that it can easily be

*seen* by students anywhere in the classroom if it is *in* the classroom.

You never know whether the last student put it away either, but, being so huge, it can't be hidden in too many places, so, nobody disrupts the class looking for it under a pile of papers.

The students apparently don't *ask* to go to the bathroom ... they just take the pass, and its obvious to anyone within 100 feet of that student what their purpose is.

Also, only a single student can leave the classroom at a time, so, you

*know* exactly how many students are missing when the pass is missing.

Teachers in San Jose, have tougher students, than most school districts, although San Jose pales in comparison with Oakland or LA, I'm sure.

I think the size point is that it would be lost within seconds, and, the class would spend (perhaps on purpose) inordinate time looking for it, as an excuse not to do their quadratic equations.

Again, size matters.

It should be *visible* anywhere in the classroom; and, any student in the hallway should be easily identifiable as to their purpose.

This neighbor recently lost her husband and had to get the first job in her life. She went through a tough 2-year certification procedure, which then allows her to teach math in the high schools. Now she has to teach for 2 or 3 years just to "clear" the certification. She's overwhelmed.

In the certification, they never taught the teacher how to teach. Nope. From what she has been telling me, they teach you mostly how to be sensitive to ethnicities, language barriers, socio-economic issues, and other pressing California issues.

She did student teach, for two semesters, in an even worse California school district further east, but there was always a "real" teacher in the classroom maintaining order.

The kids swear in every class, and she showed me a homework that a

15 year old had handed in which contained the f-word all over it.

The kid was failing every class, she told me, and just didn't care. In California, she told me, the kid is allowed to go to class until their senior year, even if they fail every single class, and that's exactly what this girl seems to be doing.

Anyway, this poor mother is all alone, the bank is taking her house, she is trying to teach, the students are making her life miserable, and, all I was trying to do was help her out.

Reply to
Danny D.
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All becomes clear :-)

I agree with you and Mayayana about the stick-on letters and so on...

Reply to
Gene E. Bloch

We had a hotel room key in Paris that had a 1/2 pound fob on it. It was a 1.5" sphere with an extension that had an eye to hold the key.

We always left it at the desk :-)

I know, the French didn't think of it in those units, but since I don't recall the actual size and weight I thought I would try to get away with English units :-)

Reply to
Gene E. Bloch

A compelling story. Thanks.

Reply to
Gene E. Bloch

Why try to do this in software? Measure your material, cut out a piece of paper of the same size, and draw it by hand (use a ruler). Or drill a hole on the end of a 2' piece of 2by4, and consider it done.

Reply to
Bill

adsDUMP wrote, on Fri, 12 Sep 2014 14:21:44 -0400:

That's an interesting trick!

Reply to
Danny D.

| > It seems like you're making an awfully big job out | > of this. | | My widowed neighbor is a lot prettier than you know. |

Ah. In that case I'd go for cherry. You could do the letters in gold leaf rather than stick-on, but you don't want to look too desperate. :)

Reply to
Mayayana

I agree that the story sounds plausible. My outburst, as it was, came from experiencing one of those failing school systems. You know the type where they chain the emergency exits closed to stop students from leaving sight unseen and then claim it was an accident if/when the school gets caught by an inspector.

No student left behind just meant that someone had to check the school rooms at the end of the day for the homeless students before they locked the rest of the doors.

Ah well, as for your original subject like some have mentioned using one of those text based word processing stencil fonts which can be sized to what ever you want. Paste the printed letters to the wood and scroll saw them out.

If it were me and I had to make something like this I would use plastic water pipe and some fittings and make an art sculpture that looks similar to a scepter. With the right paint you can make it any color you want. Much easier than sawing out those pesky letters.

Reply to
GlowingBlueMist

Not *my* original subject, but Danny D's.

Reply to
Gene E. Bloch

Mayayana wrote, on Fri, 12 Sep 2014 17:10:22 -0400:

:)

Reply to
Danny D.

GlowingBlueMist wrote, on Fri, 12 Sep 2014 17:36:17 -0500:

A jig saw would make short work of that, and it would be permanent.

Reply to
Danny D.

Gene E. Bloch wrote, on Fri, 12 Sep 2014 16:34:32 -0700:

At first, I was looking for a "program" which would auto fit the stencil letters onto the wood, given the length of the text and the size of the wood.

But, then, when I googled, I found fonts, which were surprisingly easy to install, and which printed just as easily - so - my tack changed to cutting out the stencils.

Up until that point, I was ready to router, which is about where this thread came in, but, I was soon disabused about the routering idea, and ended up spray painting the stenciled letters.

The neighbor didn't bring it home (she graciously said it worked perfectly, and she waved away my protestations about needing to fix it up); but if I were to do it over again, I think I'd go with the store-bought stickered letters, assuming that I could find them in the proper size.

Reply to
Danny D.

1.5" (maybe 4 centimetres or 40millimetres) sphere in my pants pocket would feel real uncomfortable!!

Works for me.

Daniel

Reply to
Daniel

Same trick works for making printed circuit boards. The toner works as an etching resist.

-BR

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Reply to
Brewster

I was a lot of years ago, but you reminded me of the time my wife and I left our hotel in Rome to take the train to some other Italian city. At the train station I suddenly realized I had a very big key fob (I can't remember the exact size, but it must have been at least 1.5", probably bigger) in my pocket. I didn't want to cheat the hotel out of their key, but we didn't have much time before our train left. So I ran all the to the hotel and back (about a mile each way) to return it.

(I was much younger, and therefore much fitter and more able to run in those days. )

Reply to
Ken Blake

Just yesterday I was reading some magazine or other. They said things like "the hole caused by the explosion was 30 to 40 meters (98.425197 to

131.233596 feet) wide" or "the building seemed to be 300 to 350 feet (91.44 to 106.68 meters) tall". Of course I'm exaggerating, but they did go to the nearest unit or tenth of a unit.

It made my temperature rise from a normal 98.60 F to some feverish value, like 99.00 F.

Reply to
Gene E. Bloch

When Canada switched to metric I got a phone call a the university. They needed to convert some food measurement tograms. How much was 3 oz? I said, about 90g. NoNo. they needed much better accuracy than that(and it was clear she wanted at least one digit after the decimal.

Reply to
William Unruh

It's hopeless, isn't it...

And odds are you couldn't convince her otherwise...

Reply to
Gene E. Bloch

I'd like to help but I can't make stencils for San Jose schools. It's a good thing you pointed that out. Also feel free to cross post this to as many ng's as you can.

Reply to
gonjah

And by the way, for those who don't realize it, the reason that normal temperature is Fahrenheit has one decimal place after 98 is that it's a conversion from the 37 degrees Celsius that it was originally measured at. If it had been a Fahrenheit measurement (or even a reasonable conversion), it would have been 99 degrees,

Reply to
Ken Blake

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