RAMTEC robotics seniors from Wayne Career Center qualify for SkillsUSA state championships

SMITHVILLE - A pair of seniors in Drew Fuller's robotics class, part of the RAMTEC program at the Wayne County Schools Career Center (WCSCC) will be showing what they've learned so far in state competition, May 3-4, at the Convention Center in Columbus.

Lydia Styer and Evan Blough are both excited about the opportunity to have qualified for the SkillsUSA State Industrial Robotics competition.

The SkillsUSA Ohio State Championships brings more than 5,000 competitors, business and industry partners, instructors and vendors together in over 100 contests in 16 career pathways to showcase career and technical education in Ohio. Students compete for the title of best in Ohio in their respective career fields.

"They assign us a task to do, and we have four hours to do it," Styer said.

Styer has been part of Triway's robotics team since her sophomore year, and has been interested in robotics since middle school.

"This is something I've always been interested in," Styer said. "Having an interest coming into this has been helpful. You've got to be interested to be engaged in it and enjoy yourself in class."

Blough of Smithville High School said he kind of fell into the robotics program, but is really glad he did.

"I don't have a lot to take back at my home school, so I figured this would give me something to fall back on if things don't work out at college next year," he said. "Knowing how things work has always been a hobby for me, which made this class more enjoyable. It's fun to actually figure out what's going on with something."

The students both agreed that this competition, along with what they've learned in class, will be beneficial to them down the road, no matter what they pursue.

WCSCC proud of its RAMTEC program

WCSCC Supervisor of Career and Technical Education Lynette Boggs is proud of the success of the RAMTEC program. RAMTEC stands for Robotics and Advanced Manufacturing Technology Education Collaborative.

She said WCSCC started out by asking local industry what they needed and how the Career Center could meet those needs.

"Our RAMTEC program is focused on robotics and machining technologies," Boggs said. "We also offer our RAMTEC in the adult education classes. If a local company needs something that we don't have, we'll check with other RAMTEC centers in Ohio and suggest they turn to them."

Fuller said some of the equipment was donated by local manufacturing companies such as ArtiFlex, Schaeffler, GoJo and Wooster Brush.

"Everything in here is super high-tech for doing robotics and industrial automation," Fuller said. "We tailor all of our training to them to make sure we're training our high schoolers the way the businesses want them to be trained. We get about 40 to 50 students a year in robotics between adult education and high school. We also have about 70 in automation. There's a lot of training going on 24-7.

"Having real robots is something the school has done for us and it has made a huge difference," he continued. "We're one of the bigger RAMTEC programs in the state, and we do a lot of training for other programs here."

Fuller worked in manufacturing for 20 years before teaching it the past five.

"I really, really love it. One of the things I really like is teaching other people how to do the things I teach here," he said. "This has been a perfect fit for me. It's amazing to watch no matter what age group we're dealing with, how much they absorb."

The program also offers Computer Numerical Control (CNC) training during the afternoon.

Local companies like Schaeffler involved in WCSCC advisory committ

This school has done things right from the get-go, according to Fuller, by having the local companies involved in the advisory committee that helped develop the program.

"That really drove things to be done the right way," he said. "A lot of schools never really include the local companies. Around here, I think we did it the right way, letting them drive what we're doing."

Schaeffler, for example, is strictly a Siemens PSC company, so that drove WCSCC to be able to support it.

Boggs said the building was designed to enable the school to rent out space to local industry if needed.

"We were working with a local company that was trying to improve a new manufacturing line with robotics," she said. "Instead of taking their whole line down, they came here in the summer and rented our facility and worked out a solution so they didn't have to take their line down."

It is that kind of partnership with the local industrial community that has helped make not only RAMTEC, but all the programs at WCSCC so successful.

For more information about career and industrial education, contact Boggs at 330-669-7000, ext 1022, or email her at: lboggs@wcscc.org.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Robotics students at WCSCC qualify for SkillsUSA state championships