Intersession! This was one of the greatest ideas we ever had at Rangeview. Our principal felt that we needed something to spice things up a bit. It was also at a time when the first semester ended in January. It was a strange three weeks. We spent more time in classes and then did Intersession when we came back until the rest of the district finished the first semester. It was predicated on the idea to give students a choice and teachers an opportunity to be creative. The classes were covering a huge spectrum of topics. There was Sat prep, Knitting, Woodworking, Colorado History, Electronics, and too many to mention. Intersession had been going for a while before I got to Rangeview but I really embraced the idea. I did Robot Wars. It took an RC model truck and turned it into a BattleBot. It was an opportunity to bring in added old appliances and outfit the robot with tools of destruction. We watched videos of the shows and kids had to write their ideas down and sketch them before trying them on the robot. This class was my favorite of all time. At the end of Intersession, we took the robots into the commons and had a tournament with a single winner. We had some great battles and I wish I had taken a video. We learned that the rollers for old VHS machines were very heavy and could cause a lot of destruction. We did have one person take his mother’s toaster and used parts. We did have a few dollars left from the fund so she got a new toaster. Every single thing we did in Robot Wars is now a part of my engineering curriculum. Ten years before I started teaching engineering, I was headed down this track. Thanks to Marc Stine, our principal who encouraged this creativity. I know that many students who were not involved the rest of the year really enjoyed Intersession.
