Simple distributed scheduled bell system

I work in an educational program that is set outside the normal high school campus. Since we're in essentially an office building without the typical amenities of a school, we don't have bells to warn for classes ending or beginning. The students we teach are not mainstreamed, but we feel that adding the typical school bells might aid in the path to reintegration, getting them used to the timed schedule reminders, but also to keep the three separate classes in sync better, instead of having some kids get out earlier and barging into their next class, interrupting everything (a frequent occurrence).

An apology first. The pictures are not very good. They are mostly quite blurry. I took them with a Photosmart E327, one of the worst digicams I've ever used. It's what the school IT people picked out because I was too busy to put decent effort in picking a better low price option. I also kept forgetting my coolpix 995 at home. There's really no details that are required though, so the pictures are more for visual appeal and reference... oh, and some proof of the cool cannibalization I did for the project.

Not having to spend any money was an important part as well. Having the luxury of an older unused laptop made a significant difference and a warehouse of old computers to pillage helped too.

Step 1 Tools

Screw drivers (flat and philips head, better to have both when you don't know for sure than to only have one and need the other)
Wire stripper or wire cutter, pliers and a steady hand.
Sharp hobby blade

For the most part, I used my mini multi-tool.

Comments

[tulsa_jerm]

Good plan, reminds me of high school. New principal arrived while I was in 10th grade and announced that our one-minute "warning" bells (1 minute before any "tardy" bell would ring, a warning bell would sound) were stupid because no one bothered to get to class until the warning and then everyone ran. He said that "out in the real world, you have to be on time without a warning bell!" In the 11th grade, he announced that he'd given it considerable thought and decided that bells in general were doing us a disservice. We had watches, there were clocks in every room and hallway, and "there are no bells to tell you where to be out in the real world, unless you work at a factory where you get a signal for lunch!" Smart guy. Glad he made us grow up and be a little more responsible!

[DavidRobertson]

Open Source rules (i mean fedora by that). so does virtual Network Computing (VNC).

[joejoerowley]

I want to go to a school were they run kde and gnome. Thats really cool.!

[iamchrismoran]

Haha, don't get this wrong... my running a linux box at all is NOT sanctioned by the school's IT team. They'd rather cost the district more money. ;)

[mrmath]

If you have access to a bunch of old computers, you might have access to a bunch of old computer speaker systems. You could use them as the speakers, and plug them in for the apmlification, but I think you thought of that.

[iamchrismoran]

Unfortunately, there were no speakers laying around. I didn't want to attract too much attention from the regular school IT team either. They "control" all the computers on campus, so they'd likely just as well tear it all apart... useful or not. mr math? Hehe, I'm a math teacher.

[mrmath]

I used to teach math. I was good at the teaching aspect of teaching. I sucked big time at the discpline/classroom control aspect of teaching. I got into it to make a difference in the lives of the kids I taught. I got out of it because I found I was only making a negative difference. I keep playing the lottery. If I ever win, I'll go back to school and get my PhD focusing on the areas I'm weak in, and either teach back at high school, or maybe teach other teachers how to avoid the issues I have.

[icanryme2002]

As they say those that can do those that can't, teach

[iamchrismoran]

Wow... way not cool. So much for the "be nice" policy. :(

[mrmath]

Actually, I found that way funny! He turned it around. Since I can't teach, I must be able to do. Good one!