Students rev creative engines with chopper in sight

Right now, it’s a small amount of bent and shaped metal rods and some computer drawings, with big ideas and lots of energy behind them.

But come April, it will be a motorcycle fit for display at a corporate office.  And it’s all being done by 11 Valders High School students.

The students in Todd Kiel’s Intro to Engineering class started off on Project Mini-Chopper in the first day of the school year.  By mid-April they will have designed and built from scratch a mini-chopper, which will be entered in a competition with three other Manitowoc County school teams and then put on display at the Spancrete corporate office in Waukesha.

Big work, but it’s a big opportunity, too.

The class meets every day during the fourth hour to work on the project, around which the entire curriculum has been designed for this year.

The team from Valders includes Angelina Satori, Lisa Lehman, Hannah Schmidte, Corrine Brandl, Andy Braun, Jacob Herrmann, Ethan Wanniger, Jeremy Duchow, Damian Branes, Brian Walt and Jacob Horswill.

“We all have an interest in motorcycles,” Lehman said. “But we all have an engineering interest.”

Each student has a career plan that somehow fits with this project.

Satori, for example, plans to go on to school for training as a motorcycle mechanic, while Herrman plans to attend college for mechanical engineering.

Satori said the group is thankful for the support of Spancrete, the Chamber of Manitowoc County, and all the donors and others who have helped get the team up and rolling.

Lehman said the project allows the students to use skills they already have and build upon them and learn more. Those who are itching to get to the actual building phase have been practicing skills and waiting for that portion to come.

That’s how it is with any manufacturing team, said Randy Neumeyer, project coordinator at Spancrete in Valders, who is working with the team for support and whatever else the students need.

“This is good experience for the kids,” he said. “It gives them a really good understanding of what goes into a project.”

He said seeing a project through from engineering and design to a finished product is valuable education for the students.

“The finished product is something you have to be proud of,” he said. “That’s a lesson for daily life.  You have to have pride.”

Only a small portion of the cycle is done so far, with much more design and building to come, but so far, the students are satisfied with what they have accomplished.  Hermann said the group has been fashion the bike frame out of re-bar from Spancrete.

Satori noted that having already had the computer-aided design class required for this class has put the students ahead of the other teams that are still learning those skills.

Brandl showed a computer printout of the team’s plans for the handlebars, which incorporate a Spancrete logo.  That project, done on a computer design program, now goes to Spancrete for approval.

The project has been in the works behind the scenes for about a year, since a group of business leaders and school administrators decided to launch something similar that Johnsonville Sausage had done in Sheboygan County.

VHS Principal Ellen Bartling was on that planning committee, spearheaded through the Chamber of Manitowoc County and the Economic Development Corporation of Manitowoc County.  Lakeshore Technical College is also working on the project.

“The idea is to get kids interested in manufacturing and to know that there are good jobs in this area,” she said.

The committee decided to launch Project Mini-Chopper to give the student teams something to build, from the design and engineering phase all the way to final product.  Corporate sponsors have taken each of the teams under their wing to offer guidance on this project, as well as funding and support in finding materials not covered by the funds.

The Valders team is sponsored by Spancrete, which donated $5,000 toward the project and other costs, and the finished cycle will become the company’s property and be displayed at the corporate office in Waukesha.

But they have to get there first.

At Valders, the decision was made to have the team members be enrolled in a class, but the other schools, Lincoln and Roncalli high schools, are running their programs after school.

Bartling said Kiel jumped on the idea when asked if he wanted to participate, partly because of his Intro to Engineering class fit the bill.

The students on the team come with varying interests and viewpoints on the project, which is exactly the point of the project, Bartling said.

“You do have a mix of kids whose goal is to go to college and be engineers and another group that wants to do the actual manufacturing process,” she said.

She said that is the kind of mix of people found in a real manufacturing company, and the students will be required to mix and match their skills as a team to get the job done, which teaches them how to be good workers as adults.

Neumeyer agreed that this exercise will help the students learn how a real team functions in a manufacturing plant as they learn to use their own strengths and share them with the team.

“These are the nuts-and-bolts type of guys and gals who want to turn the wrenches, and those that want to do the design and computer work,” he said. “…Some may find this is not their thing, but some will find their niche here.

Beyond designing and building the chopper, the students are also required to keep good records of their progress and make presentations to Spancrete and others.  Each design phase must be approved by Spancrete before any actual building work is done.

Bartling said all of that requires the students exercise a gamut of work skills including communication and computer skills. 

The students themselves said they have not yet completely sorted out who will do each job, but that each comes to the project with particular strengths and interests.  For example, Brandl and Lehman have taken the lead on the initial computer design phase, and Satori is also leading with things such as web site design and eventual Power Point presentation.

The students are earning high school credit for the course, along with advanced placement credit form LTC, Bartling said.

The payoff will come in April, when the chopper and the ones from Roncalli team and the two teams from Lincoln will face off in a contest held at the Ant Hill Mob motorcycle club’s annual show.

“What I really like about this is the efforts of these different groups of people,” Bartling said of the businesses, LTC, motorcycle club and others who have joined in the project with the students. “The kids can see that adults out there care about them.”

She said it also does not hurt the students to get to know some of these business leaders, noting that the connections could help someday with a job.

The principal said it’s important that Valders is able to work the project into a daily class, which helps the students stay on track, but that after-school hours are more than likely going to be needed too.  But, the project is such a valuable connection with “the adult world” of work, that all the effort will be worth it.

“It’s so hands on, and it’s so real for the kids,” she said.

Neumeyer said this sort of project is new for Spancrete to become involved in, but it’s exciting to see what it’s doing for the students.

“It’s a great opportunity for those kids, in comparison to sitting in class and looking at a book,” he said.