High school technical drawing class has an ‘aggravating’ twist to give students further design and technology expertise

student at computer Technical Drawing is nearing its first year being a part of the high school’s robust and varied curriculum, offering students an opportunity to dive deeper into various design programs and technologies tied to this sector of the engineering world.

“Students can often become frustrated or ‘aggravated’ with having to learn new processes and redo design work,” said teacher Andy Mink.

So, what better way to get rid of those feelings while increasing program/technology knowledge and proficiency than by actually recreating the 1962 classic board game called “Aggravation?”

Aggravation game being createdIn Aggravation, a player who lands a marble on a space occupied by an opponent’s marble “aggravates” that player’s piece and sends it back to that player’s base. A player’s piece may not be aggravated if it is on an inside corner as these are safe from aggravation. He or she must land on the space either before or after his/her opponent.

“Students measured all of the components of the game, created the design in AutoCAD (an industry standard for engineers), imported the design into a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) milling software, and calculated all of the machine processes (tool paths) to create the board out of wood,” said Mr. Mink.

Students playing Aggravation During this process students tested out different tool paths to see how well the marble would fit and which CNC router bits and processes should be used, he added.

Now that Minisink Valley versions of the games have been created, the true game “winners” are the students who have new engineering skills and software knowledge along with an opportunity play this  board game anywhere with family and friends.