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Raising his head, Marcus looked at the class and with resignation and picked up the tool he had been very reluctant to put in these kids hands. "This is a power drill it is the easiest way to screw a screw into a piece of wood. Now these drills run on batteries so there will be no problems with cords or electricity."
He paused for a moment to take a deep breath, "Okay you will each find a power drill underneath your work bench and I have taken the liberty of labeling the parts for you. Now before you get your drill out I will tell you all once again that this is a tool not to mess around with. I will give you all few moments to check out the components of the drill before I go through the steps on how to use it. Off you go."
Kylie looked anxiously down at the power drill. Things like this had never QUITE been her forte. She was good at things... many, MANY things. In fact, she was at least respectable at most anything. This? Yeah. Not one of those things. She bit her lip, not wanting to complain, carefully picked up the drill and began poking at it a bit. Nothing seemed broken... she held it well with both hands, at first (as the last time she'd handled a drill it went flying from her hands), and clicked the button. It whizzed about and she was relatively proud it hadn't gone soaring through the air. The professor spoke again.
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Moving back to his desk, Lawson picked up the power drill and held it up for everyone to see. "Okay so as you can see on the bottom of the drill is the battery. Moving up we have the trigger switch. This is button you press to make the drill go, as some of you have already figured out." He looked at Jake and Miranda as he said this.
"Up the top of the drill is the screw driver bit. As I explained before there are two types screwdrivers. Flat blade and cross head blade. Then we have the speed selector switch which I think is self explanatory. You have a choice of slow, medium and fast speeds. And over here is the reversing switch. Flick it forward and it pushes the drill in. Flick it back and it will go backwards, taking the screw back out."
He paused to take a breath before continuing, "This here is the torque adjustment collar. What this does is determines the depth you want to the screw to go in. The higher up the torque you go the deeper the screw will go in." And then he pointed to the last component on the drill. "This is called the keyless chuck. By turning the chuck counter clockwise it will release your drill bit, by turning it clockwise tightens the drill bit, keeping it in place."
Putting the drill down for the moment, Lawson placed a piece of wood onto his desk and then picked up a two inch screw. "Okay so as you can see I have a cross head screw, so I need to use the cross head blade. I now turned the chuck counter clockwise and then place the drill bit into the centre and then tighten the chuck again by turning it clockwise." He held up the drill so that the students could see what he was doing.
"Now that I have my drill bit in place, I need my screw which I have right here. What you need to do now is hold the screw against the piece of wood, pointy end down. Fit your drill bit into the screw and hold it steady and then place your finger on the trigger and the screw will go into the wood. Now because you are all beginners at this I want you all to make that your speed setting is on slow. Make sure your fingers are well out of the way when you get the drill going."
And now was the moment of truth. "You may all try it now."
Kylie's green eyes opened wide as they often did when she was learning. She lightly caressed various parts of the drill as Professor Lawson described them. After he gave them their first task, she took a deep breath and recounted everything the professor had just told them.
It's okay... you made it work before... nothing bad happened...
She took out the drill, with one hand this time, she was about to do as the professor had asked, when it suddenly came to her... weren't you supposed to do something to the wood BEFORE just trying to put the screw in it? Doing what he'd ask would, more likely than not, split the wood... And if her wood split... some of it might lodge straight into her eye. Or get jammed up her palm. Or... or... Maybe she'd drill straight THROUGH her hand...
"Professor? I think I remember something my brother told me about drilling a screw into a piece of wood... Aren't you not supposed to just do it? Like, you increase your chances of splitting the wood doing that? Aren't you supposed to do something first?"
She had no idea what the 'something' was that you were to do first... but if it could save her from a few days in the hospital wing, then all was well. She SUPER hoped she didn't sound like a stubborn brat. She looked around the room once to see if anyone elses wood had split.