Computer-Aided Drafting is another one of the Career and Technical Education programs at Parsons High School where students are gaining hands-on experience actually serving other students and staff, as well as their community.
High school CAD programs teach students to create precise 2D and 3D technical drawings, models and blueprints using industry standard software like AutoCAD. Students learn to apply engineering principles, visualize objects, dimension designs for manufacturing or construction, and use tools like 3D printers and CNC machines. Instructor Bruce Rea strives to ensure the students learn much more than the basics by gaining real world experience.
“A lot of these projects get them working with people in the real world, like with the veterans memorial, we’ve met with the city several times,” Rea said, in addition to working collaboratively with the veterans group, and small teams from local industry assisting students with the project.
“They are getting the opportunity to meet with a team in the real world,” Rea said. “When they get to industry they are going to work with people, especially on projects. They’ve got to get used to working with other people, listening to other people, giving their ideas. Most of the time the senior projects do that with the kids.
Senior Anthony Bauer pulled up work on his computer he is currently doing to further the precision drawings for the 5 Pathways to Freedom Veterans Memorial colonnades, ensuring all the math adds up. The ground breaking for the memorial is planned for March 4, bringing the project one step closer to being realized. Students' work on the memorial has received a lot of attention, but other projects are in the works as well.
Adam Reel pulled up drawings he is working to complete for a decorative metal archway that would potentially be constructed by PHS students for installation over one of the sidewalk entrances to the Parsons Arboretum.
“We’re trying to get an idea of what it will look like and the size,” Reel said.
The Parsons Arboretum Foundation Board has already approved the concept drawings.
“This has been my main focus recently,” he said. “The first semester I was working on a United States flag (metal 7 by 22 in wood frame) that is hopefully going to be auctioned off for this project.”
“I’ve done quite a few projects this year," Reel said. “ I like the class a lot. I hope to go into this for a job hopefully, within the near future. I think it's something I enjoy doing.”
The size of Jack Burton’s most recent project is relatively small in size, but big in importance to the person he is working on it for.
Burton pulled up a CAD drawing for a car part he did at the request of the Viking Speed Shop to help one of their customers who owns a 75-year-old Plymouth for which there is no aftermarket support and no parts available for sale online. In hopes of helping their customer with the replacement of a turn signal lens, they approached Bruce Rea’s CAD students. Burton took measurements, created the drawing, and 3-D printed a prototype out of ABS plastic. Finding it would be a perfect replacement, he was able to then use PLA translucent filament and 3-D print an actual replacement lens cover.
Rea said projects like that are constantly going on in his classroom.
Senior Mason Williams recently contributed his mechanical prowess and skills he learned in CAD to create a part to be 3-D printed for the Fanuc industrial robot, allowing a gripper ( sort of a grasping hand) to be mounted on the arm. Before students were able to program the robot to draw with its end-of-arm tooling. Now, students will be able to learn to program the industrial robot to pick up items and move them to another location.
Rea said Williams has been working on this and other ways to help integrate the Fanuc robot with the educational bench top robots students build, intertwining drafting and robotics.
Rea’s connections to local industry, like Magnum Systems and Ducommun, show students how what they are learning overlaps in a wide array of potential careers.
One thing that is especially nice about the students getting to learn from industry professionals, is they get to hear about job opportunities available, even locally.
One young aeronautical engineer from Ducommun recently came and spoke to the students about projects Ducommun is currently involved in, and his career..
“I know some of these kids want to move on, which is fine, but Parsons isn’t a bad place to be. It’s a good place to be,” Rea said. “This kid, who spoke, he’d done the numbers on his salary.”
Rea said the young engineer told the students he had friends who moved to bigger cities after college and went to work in jobs with six digit salaries. His entry level salary was below six digits taking a job in Parsons. On the surface, it looked like his friends were doing better financially. However, after figuring out the cost of living for his friends in the bigger cities versus himself, he learned he is coming out ahead of them financially.
“When he finished talking to them I had to thank him, because these kids need to hear that,” Rea said. “Industry loves to come in here and talk to the classes. They are very supportive of what we do. Always have been. It makes it fun.
“I was telling 8th grade students touring, Parsons really is a manufacturing town. If you look at all these manufacturers, they all have products and somewhere in that company there is going to be engineering, which is going to have drafting, so the jobs are there,” Rea said. “If I was going to tell the industry anything, I’d tell them we’re here to help. We’ve got kids who can come in and help in those areas and we’ve got proof throughout industry. We’ve got kids out there. And I think we’ve got a responsibility to do that.”
