At 05:23 PM 7/22/02 -0500, you wrote: 

>>>>

<excerpt>My question is in drilling the holes for the pegs to fit in.  I
tried it myself and had no problem drilling at a 90 degree angle but how
do you drill at a 45 degree angle.  Is there a tool that will make
drilling different angles safe for the students.   

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Joe,

This looks like a very creative assignment idea.  Woodworkers do use lots
of jigs to hold the wood in the correct angle for drilling, cutting, etc.
 It feeds the drill into the wood while it clamps the wood securely in
the correct position.  I suspect there is a ready-made jig to safely do
exactly to do what you need to do.  


Have you considered making the design of the tool into an assignment? 
Designing the jig seems like a fun optional assignment for students who
enjoy invention, or for students who want to explore engineering.


They might start out individually, periodically sharing ideas with the
larger class, then go back and make refinements.  When finished, the
class could help test the gig and make suggestions for improvements by
designing and creating individual sculptures that are assembled with
holes and pegs.


By experimentation they could decide if the design is "patent worthy". 
It is fairly complicated and can be expensive to register a patent, but
students may be inspired to do an Internet search to see if the same
thing has been invented in the past.  Patent searches of prior similar
inventions are also quite helpful when listing approaches to solving a
problem like this.  They can do their own free searches at:

http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html

For example a with quick search I found patent #6,386,803  "Drill for
inexperienced users" patented by a children's museum.


If hints are needed to get student inventors started, one might suggest a
chunck of iron with a correct sized guide hole bored through it and some
mounting holes to secure the iron chunck to the rest of the jig.  This
piece is the drill guide.  The rest of the jig clamps to the wood.  It
has adjustments to orient the iron drill guide at any angle for drilling.
 To understand the adjustment concept, they might study a photographer's
tripod head that supports a camera at any angle needed.  


High school shop teachers might like to collaborate on something like
this.  Hope this helps.

Marvin

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