Open Source License, Legal Disclaimer & Safety Warnings

My Philosophy on Open Source:

Hi, my name is Jim Burnham, and I’m a Mechatronics teacher here at Silicon Valley CTE in San Jose. SVCTE is a public CTE High School that pulls from 40 + other public and private High Schools here in the Silicon Valley area. Students come for 3 hours every day... I get them for 3 hours , every day... so we ca really dig into topics. I’m reaching out as a fellow Instructor, and would like to see if you would be willing to share resources, lesson plans, and Lab. I’m specifically looking for lesson plans geared to High school, in the topics of Electronics, Arduinos, Raspberry PI, 3D Printing, and Robotics

First, a little about me: Until Aug of 2016, I was working full time as an Engineer at Xilinx. They are the inventor of the FPGA, programmable SoCs, and now, the ACAP. They were awesome to work for, and it was a wild technological ride… but it has always been noodling around in my head to be a High School teacher… So here I am. I’m super excited, because… heck… I get to teach Mechatronics… which is another way of saying FIRE Breathing Robots… Yes, I get to teach High School kids how to build FIRE Breathing Robots… I would challenge you to come up with a better career… OK, Sure, working as an Engineer on Mars might be better, but for now, FIRE Breathing Robots will do just fine.

In the 2017-2018 school year, SVCTE started a Mechatronics program, and I started to build and create the curriculum. As any teacher knows, building a new program with all new, nonexistent content is a daunting but rewarding task. 

Second, let me explain my philosophy on sharing curriculum: Coming from the Tech industry, where Intellectual property is currency, where most companies tend to not share their technology or work, I have had some growing pains. My first year of teaching, when I taught a Cyber Security class, I felt like all my lesson plans and collateral that I had created had value… and it did... I spent a lot of time one it... but I came to realize that I’m really not competing with other teachers. I work in San Jose, and maybe I have some local competition, but in reality, if a student is not coming to my class or my school, then I’m really not competing with other teachers in any way… and if you are a teacher who works more than a District away, then we really are not competitors.  Let's Share... Collaborate... Help each other... 

I have come to the opinion, that while I may have sweat blood and tears developing a lesson plan, it is more value to students if it’s shared in an Open Source and creative commons licensed way… 

So… That is my plan. I’m going to share virtually everything I develop. I know that there is lots of folks who think that they should get some value for the material they develop, and that is fine. I don’t begrudge them that. If they can make that work, great. I’m just saying that is not what I’m going to do. 

Sure, if someone found any collateral I created useful and valuable and wanted to recognize the time that went into it, and wants to send me an AMAZON gift card, buy me something off my Amazon Wish List, or drop something in my venmo … that is fine and welcome… just not required 

So… how about it… want to get on the open source band wagon? I know there is not a lot for Mechatronics yet, but I’m going to share all my material on www.steamclown.org. this is my personal domain. More directly is my Mechatronics Engineering class Google Site . I will always try to give credit where credit is due. I will, to the best of my ability, site any sources, and point to where I got stuff. 

I also think that we, as educators should not share copyright material. So to that end, I’m going to also do my best to not post docs and PDF that are not already in the public domain. I may use some material from books I have bought. I will always be re-framing and potentially enhanced or reworked it to work in my class under "Fair Use", but fair use aside, my goal is to not appropriate content that someone has a copyright.. 

With that said, I’m a true believer in Opensource and creative commons licensing… and will promote, modify and enhance any open content that I find useful… and I will site the source and if modified, re-post on my site for anyone to use, critique, or modify.

Caution & Safety:

All Learning can be dangerous.  There are risks in any activity.  To illiterate this I'm going to quote 2 of my favorite SciFi movies:

Primer:  "Aaron, I can imagine no way in which this thing could be considered anywhere remotely close to safe. All I know is I spent six hours in there and I'm still alive... You still want to do it?"

Safety Not Guaranteed:  "WANTED: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O.Box 322 Oakview, CA93022. You'll get paid after we get back.  Must bring your own weapons. Safety Not Guaranteed.  I have only done this once before."

Please use caution while engaging with the steps described in the Lessons, Labs, and Activities presented on this site, or site linked from this site.

Legal Disclaimer

Still working on this....