Intellecta Technologies Pty Ltd

for PICAXE , Roland , Intellecta control, Victorian Education support

News 2008

2008 promises to be a very exciting year with new machines from Roland, new education products in electronics and new education directions from education departments.

New:   News for 2008 Document

Victorian Education Initiative

The Victorian government is leading the way is supporting innovative and exciting changes in technology education arena. Recent focussed grants to schools mean that technology teachers can plan for upgrades/re-skilling as they face new challenges in subjects such as engineering and systems.

The other news is that Intellecta has forged a strategic link with Roland Digital Group with a new entity Roland Intellecta Education with a targetted education focus. This means our network of trainers and support teachers will be involved in some exciting new projects to better support teachers and students.

The following documents support the excellent Roland brochure that has been released. These are excerpts from the catalogue.

Quick summary of all the machines and examples. Looks at PCB with Circuit Wizard, Altium Designer - ideal document to present to the principal as a planning document.

Roland- TechsoftUK brochure - 5Mb

Cad/CAM - applications in education

Milling Machines - general view of Roland resources

GX-24E - vinyl cutter

2D design and Make - a view of new 2D software

PCB Design and Make - safe and environmentally compatible manufacture

Function, competency based courses for ICT and Engineering and ICT and Electronics

News 2008  - Exciting new electronics, robotics and engineering resources for educators

It is a pleasure to work with like-minded companies in the advancement of great learning outcomes for our students.

PCS Edventures from Boise, Idaho, USA is an exciting group of individuals with long standing expertise in science and technology education and it with pleasure that Intellecta Technologies has been appointed as the Australian distributor. The materials have excellent planning support and curriculum that are well suited to the Australian education area.

The INTAD conference in Brisbane was the first official launch of this partnership and many Aussies had the pleasure of meeting the Egusquiza’s from the company. Joe ran two great workshops that captured the imagination of many Australian educators.

Here are some curriculum materials and documents for examination.

Academy of Electronics : Analog

Academy of Electronics - Digital

Academy of Robotics - Application of Robotics

Academy of Robotics -Principles of Robotics

Academy of Robotics - Programming

Academy of Robotics - racecar

Academy of Engineering - Gear train series

Academy of Engineering, Power train transfer Teachers notes

Academy of Electronics - sample materials

New launch of great new trainer -coming end of MAY 2008

The MR board is a great invention to assist in the teaching of electronics - as used in all schools in Taiwan.

Brochure:

New Electronics trainers.

As designed by leading educators in Victoria and Queensland.

These systems control motors, servos, 7 seg display, sensors,

all from the little PICAXE 14M or the mighy ATMEL Mega8

Watch out for the release of book and notes from AMAZON.COM

The new prototyper board uses either the 08M, 14M in simple, hands on explorations in electronics. Curriculum designed by one of the leading electronics teachers in Adelaide.

2008 - Busy around Australia

Several Australian state initiatives in technology education ( NOT JUST COMPUTERS) propelled Intellecta into a major partner with Roland Digital Group from Sydney and other partnserships.

Training and support has always been a strong feature of Intellecta based on a simple observation - We like to be treat our customers as we wish to be treated by our suppliers - give me help when needed and be available when we have problems.

Most of our users are savvy tech teachers but a growing trend in 2008 was that we experienced many teachers with minimal background. For example, they may have been art teachers with a desire to get involved in CAD/CAM.

First MDX-540 in Adelaide at Immanuel College

Immanuel College started the ball rolling in South Austalia with the MDX_540 complete with rotary axis, GX-24 vinyl cutter and a range of extra software.

The college has a long history in leading technical education with staff such s Brian Jacobi who was involved in the very important national curriculum discussion. This leadership has seen many teachers taking a strong visionary role and Peter Maple is the latest leader in this environment.

We ran seevral training days to get the staff up and running with this impressive kit of gear.

Narangba Valley tech day at Caboolture, Queensland

Andrew McIntyre invited Intellecta to run two tech days at the school in Caboolture. Th eplan was to run through the INtellecta icon control software as part of a systems area , PICAXE microporgramming and running the MDX_40 with the Roland software.

Several teachers attended the two days and had great fun with the PICAXE systems and getting to know th eRoland MDX-40.T

Two day session at Woomera

Woomera- about 500km north of Adelaide, was the home of the advanced rocket research in Australia with names such as Blue streak etc. The township is also home to the area school and Andrew Hudson arranged a northern area hub meeting.David Donnell and Tony Pugatschew made the liong haul and ran two day workshops on CAD/CAM, electronics.

Andrew also runs a aqualculture lab and saves the need to go fishhing.

Happy MDX-40 users at CBC, Freemantle

Freemantle in Perth, Western Australia is the home of some great breweries and fish cafes. It is also the home of some excellent teaching institutions such as Christian Brothers College. Geoff Buss and his team have a MDX_40 pumping away and are mad clock enthusiats. Looking forward to some clock CAD designs.

MDX-40 and robotics at Sorrento, Western Australia

Neil Gray is a long time Intellecta user at Sacred Heart College, Sorrento. Recently, he has been using the PICAXE 18X development boards that we supplied - runs motors, servos, etc. Check out the design- all made on the MDX-40. The motors are special Intellecta geared motors with internal planetery gearboxes - great torque ( product of force and application arm length)

MDX-540 launch at Edith Cowan University, Perth

Intellecta was hosted at ECU by Dr. John Williams from the technical education faculty. The MDX-540 was launched at the session and was retained by Mt Lawley Secondary. The school share a cooperative environment and new graduates can work with the current MDX-40 and new machine. ECU is also involved in the F1 car program and John was involved in the launch sequence. The session also saw the launch of the new machining material- eduwax that makes training a pleasure. Compared to foam it is easy to keep under control with swarf remaining on the work area.

MDX-650 at Wesley College, Perth

Tony Pugatschew and Russell Cooper, Roland Eduaction manager dropped in to Wesley College to view the interesting work programs in the tech centre. It was a good opportunity to do a quick lube service on the MDX_650 machine and discuss a range of education issues.

ITEA conference, Salt Lake City

From summer to winter was the pathway that Tony Pugatschew and Russell Cooper took.

Salt Lake city had snow on the streets but this did not dampen the enthusiasm of the attendees or the trade show staff. As always, amazing technology and directions from the US.

Mike Brown from PTC gave an inspirational talk on the impact on students of a focussed cad experience with ProEngineer.

The opening session was chaired by PTC and a range of awards were given to high performance teachers from a number of states.

ITEA was an excellent chance to catch up with the team from PCS Edventures. The excellent Academy series for analog electronics, digital electronics, engineering and robotics is attracting strong interest

iiate conference, NSW

iiate - institute of industrial arts technology education

Peter and Ruth Thompson were instrumental in getting the “hands on - minds on conference in Sydney. The two day event was divided between talks and trade show at the large RSL club at Rootey Hill and Bossley Park High School.

We ran a trade stand with Roland - Russell Cooper and Matthew Landrigan participated.

We ran workshops on control electronics with the PICAXE. The event was a chance to catch up with some great suppliers. Scorpio -Arnie and Anita were  in attendance and we had great time in discussing the cross support of products.

Brisbane Grammar - real control

Brisbane Grammar in Queensland has really advanced design and technology eduaction under the vision of Jamie Foulger and Danny O’Kane. They have developed great workprograms based on CAD/CAM and electronics where students make their control systems from a zero base. NO kits are provided apart from an assembled Intellec PICAXE controller with servos’, motors, lights and sensor channnels.

The theme was based on robot arm automation with excellent results.

INTAD 2008 - Brisbane

Queensland is the home of the most dynamic tech teacher association in Australia. Intellecta and Roland were the key sponsors and allowed us to introduce Andrew Gregory from Techsoft UK and other visitors.

The display was well attended with many teachers interested in the CAD/CAM direction in the UK and other issues. Roland’s key note speaker - James Courtney presented a talk on the importance of CAD and CAM to the motor racing activities.

We also had the great pleasure of meeting up with the Egusquizas from PCS Edventures in the US. Intellecta is the main education reseller in AUstralia and Joe introduced a range of activities and resources in tech education - electronics, engineering and robotics.

Trade shows are an excellent opportunity to catch up with past customers and meet new and interested teachers. Since Queensland has been the major state in the introduction of CAD with packages such as Prodesktop, it is easy to see the connection with the next stage of manufacture. Here students get a real sense of integration and achievement as their models and designs come to life.

INTAD 2008 demonstrated the importance of networking and linking of ideas.

St Hilda’s, Gold Coast-

Brandt Ward is an enthusiastic new MDX_40 user and Tony Pugatschew ran a full day training session for the team.

Brandt is very proud of the student projects and looks forward to integrating the MDX-40 into the activties.

Toowoomba Christian College -

Long hike up the hill to Toowoomba but wel worth catching up with Peter Sondergeld and the team at the Christain College.

The MDX-540 was part of a grant process and plans are afoot for a range of activities and projects.

Electronics Boot Camp, Griffith Uni

Medidan College launch-

Education technology at Caulfield Racecourse

Development work on micro’s

Intellecta develops a range of electronics training packages and the new prototyper evolved from good discussions with a number of teachers interested in electronics educatuion. Students are involved in a range of activities as they translate the circuits to working prototypes.

Tasmanian moderators meeting

Tasmania is a beautiful island state with many switched-on educators. Russell Cooper and Tony Pugatschew made the ferry trip with an MDX_40 to launch some contacts at a moderators meeting at Launceston College. Excellent facilities and great workshops are evident in the institution..

Training at Shepparton

Shepparton Secondary HS and Wanganui HS participated in a 2 day joint workshop on their MDX-40 machines. These were part of a technology upgrade and it was good to see participation by both traditional technology teachers and the art faculty

MDX-40 at Footscray City College

Technology gets a real boost at the college with an MDX-40

Leongatha Vic upgrade

Leongatha in Victoria has been a long time user of the MDX-40 and this was upgraded with other bits and pieces. It proved a good opportunity to do some upgrade teaching at the same time.

St Columbans, Caboolture -

Eugene Tasker and the team had a good training session as an introduction to the new Roland MDX-40 and GX-24. Lino cutting was tried with Vcarve with excellent results.

Springwood Secondary College -

Greg Christensen and his team are leading the way with electronics programs. A new EGX-350 and MDX-20 are part of the learning artillery coupled with CIrcuit Wizard and PCB Design and Make.

Wood Show, Melbourne

We had the pleasure of running a display with Janeden River from Tceh ed ucation, Latrobe University. There were many interesting and distracting displays where great prowess was shown..

Glen Waverly Boost with an MDX-540

AB Patterson

Melton High School

McGuire College, Shepparton

St Helena Victoria

Launch of Aviation High Centre

Vcarve and practical outcome

Copperfield - launch

Teav - end of year session

Launch of the brain

Welcome to a new staff member

Final 2008 function in SA

Final 2008 function in Queensland

Final 2008 function at Mt Lawley , Perth

Brisbane Grammar in Queensland has really advanced design and technology eduaction under the vision of Jamie Foulger and Danny O’Kane.