38 Australian Wood Review
PROFILEin 2016 was the outright winner of
AWR’s Student Awards and several
were commended this year. In 2017,
his year 12 industrial technology
students were first, second and tenth
in NSW’s top ten, while another
won first prize at Shape 2017 for a
piece that was exhibited at MAAS
Museum, Sydney.When Ben started teaching at
Freshwater Senior Campus, design
and technology had floated as a
lower performing area of the school
for around 10 years. There are now
students who specifically enrol at
Freshwater to study design.‘The students that are coming now
know what they’re in for. They start
their major year 12 works in term
four of year 11’, said Ben. ‘Some
are already crack makers, but I’ve
still got those that haven’t done
any woodworking’. In fact this
year’s cohort shows a serious range
of skills, including one who had
already built eight hollow timber
surfboards. ‘I’ve got students that
have their own 3D printers and
come into class: “Sir, I’ve printed
another prototype...”. One has a
dad who has a CNC router so he’ll
come in with CNC-cut templates- and then there are some that I
feel like they haven’t turned on a
computer in their life. There’s the
whole spectrum.’Digital skills are nowadays important
but not a solution in their own right.
‘Students are taught to use CAD but
still start fundamentally from hand
drawings because if they’re not expert
at CAD the designs they produce will
tend to be clunky and heavy looking.‘One of the first things I tell my
students when we start designing is
that we are stepping as far away as
we can from “chunk”. It’s often like
they have only ever been taught howTop and above: White Oak Coffee Table
and detail of decorative frame joinery, 2016,
American white oak. Photo: Carol Gibbons
Left: Undergrowth Coffee Table, made from
African olivewood for Treecycle 2016. ‘The
grain was next level with this wood so I had
to get curvaceous with the joints to keep with
the theme.’ Photo: Carol Gibbons