Richland County students unveil community project at weekly manufacturing camp
If young kids have an interest in manufacturing and someday would like to pursue a career in that field, the Richland County Manufacturing Camp was the place to be last week.
Students in Richland County who attended the Richland County Manufacturing Camp got the chance to learn about manufacturing, teamwork, and local production facilities.
The camp has been organized by U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown since 2013, with more than 160 camps assembled across the state. Some of the partners who helped put the camp together in Richland County include the Regional Manufacturing Coalition (RMC), Mansfield Airport and North Central State College. The North End Community Improvement Collaborative (NECIC) along with the Regional Manufacturing Coalition and EPIK, a business development service in Morrow County, also collaborated for the camp.
Manufacturing camp is for students age 9 to 14
"Senator Brown's initiative kind of called for students entering fourth grade through eighth grade to be able to come in," said Tyler Shinaberry, of EPIK, who spent a lot of time with the students throughout the week regarding teaching them and being involved with the project they were working on. "We have students that are anywhere from 9 to 14 or going into the ninth grade. That's our capacity."
Students got the chance to participate in team-building exercises that would be useful in a possible career in manufacturing.
"The North Central Ohio Industrial Museum is discussing the past, the present and future in manufacturing," Shinaberry said. "We decided to use this as a leverage to do both the camp and make the project. Starting in January, we started exploring everything from computerized drafting that's involved with this to the machinery that's used to cutting it, to the lasers and waterjets used. Then we actually visited the facilities and they were able to get a hands-on experience and tour to see how the products are made."
The theme of this week's camp was "Digital Manufacturing & Artificial Intelligence." Some of the key areas the students said they learned about manufacturing included safety, profit and loss, banking and capital.
'Much more to manufacturing than production'
"Part of the curriculum my company designs is exposure and Senator Brown pushes that as well. Exposure and exploration," Shinaberry added. "They get exposed to what's out there with all the jobs available. There's much more to manufacturing than production. We have everything from nurses to pilots in manufacturing, to maintenance workers, construction workers and engineers. So we are trying to show them all the different opportunities available to them."
The project the students worked on and completed was called the NCO (North Central Ohio) Tappan's Donor Wall, which featured names on metal plates of all the companies and organizations that contributed financially to the manufacturing project, such as the Mansfield Engineered Components, Lind Media & Sign Spring, Conard Foundation, DRM Productions, Gorman Family Foundation, and Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society, among others. The project was unveiled at the Ohio State Reformatory on Friday morning.
"The donor wall is filled with names of companies who donated to the project," Shinaberry said. "The plates are metal and the students explored the process of using laser and waterjets."
Overall, Shinaberry said the students enjoyed the camp and learned a great deal.
"They're usually burned out at the end of the week because we do keep them moving pretty fast," Shinaberry said. "It's pretty fast-paced. This is their summer break. They come in every morning. In the morning they're usually tired but as the week goes they start to wake up."
jsimpson@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Sherrod Brown's manufacturing camp exposes students to career options
