As fingers type on the keyboard and computer mice click, students carefully orchestrate each part of their design on a computer. Their minds twist and turn until they have successfully formatted their piece. Light from the computer screens illuminates their faces as they prepare to build models for class.
Career and technology classes have been working on designing and building different constructions. They are sculpting model rockets, ships and dollhouses in order to grasp more knowledge of architecture and engineering, as these are the subjects they wish to pursue as a career.
“We are designing [the rockets] in inventor, and we will actually be building those and launching them in a couple of weeks on the football practice field,” career and technology teacher Tonya Wheat said. “We are also building some dollhouses in my architecture and interior design classes. Then in my engineering class, they are doing a model of the USS Arizona, which was one of the ships at Pearl Harbor.”
Before the actual building process begins, students have to draw every part by hand. After designing their model, they put each separate piece into a computer program called AutoCAD.
“AutoCAD took us about a week total to get the [rocket] design, and it’s been about two weeks of Inventor to design our rocket,” sophomore Morgan Gibson. “We are actually trying to go for a similar design on all of the rockets, so we can keep it uniform. I’m personally thinking about putting a little green army man on mine just for fun.”
Some students wish to pursue engineering as a career in their future. Career classes such as Wheat’s help better prepare them for problems in their career field.
“I guess this is taking us through everything an inventor would do and teach us things that will follow us in the future,” sophomore Robert Beaudoin. “We are going to have a competition and put a little parachute on the top.”
In the fashion and interior design class, groups customized dollhouses. They learned different techniques following the instructions they were given.
“For the past couple of weeks, we have been working on some big-sized dollhouses,” sophomore Andrea Willoughby said. “The purpose of building the dollhouses is to gain a better perspective of how to design them and [understand] the structure of a house.”
Even though some students do not wish to follow a fashion and design path as a career, the class contributes to students acquiring different techniques and skills. They are learning different problem solving skills as they come into a difficult situation during their building process.
“I am taking this class mostly for fun,” sophomore Emma Cox. “I like the creativity that it allows us to have with the colors and different designs and everyone pitching in with their own ideas.”
