It’s not your father’s wood shop. A CNC router is programmed to buzz through wood with any design created on a computer for the Industrial Math class at Apollo-Ridge High School.
That’s just the beginning.
Donations to buy new equipment for high school shop classes totaled about $75,000 in the past several years. Big donors included the Apollo-Ridge Education Foundation and Arconic Foundation.
“The donations helped take the traditional wood shop to the next level,” said Dustin Traill, tech education teacher at Apollo-Ridge High School.
The Apollo-Ridge Foundation recently awarded $4,500 for a dual drum sander that could arrive in June.
“Sanding consumes most of the time for many projects,” he said, adding the new sander will change all of that and free up students to work on more projects.
The Apollo-Ridge Foundation said Traill’s focus on technology “gives students the experience of the current and upcoming demands of the trades.”
For Nathan Stripling, a senior from Apollo, the industrial math class is “more hands-on and more interesting.”
Cody Shellhammer, also a senior, said the high-tech aspect of the CNC Router and making designs is his favorite part of the class.
Over the years, traditional shop class has taught valuable woodworking and other skills. The high-tech aspect of the class now provides even more of an education.
“Most seniors are not set in stone about their futures,” Traill said. “I wanted to give the students exposure to the technology, design and the programs.”
Additionally, the academic exercise of working with unfamiliar technology is a lesson for students.
Tech-ed courses are essential to the district, as many of the skills learned in these classes can be applied to almost any career that uses technology, said Dan Consuegra, principal of Apollo-Ridge High School.
“Sadly, the cost of the equipment is extremely high, in addition to the cost of the consumables,” he said, adding that’s where the foundations fill an important gap.
