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Iowa High
School Students Learn Business Skills in Shop Classes
 Two Iowa
secondary schools are teaching lessons about entrepreneurship
and life disguised as shop classes. Gregg Helmich, teacher at
Forest City High School, Forest City, Iowa, and William
Grothus, teacher at Black Hawk Junior High School, Pleasant
Valley, Iowa, have independently developed remarkably similar
programs in which students build useful products using
inexpensive but powerful CNC machines and then market them
with the goal of developing their business skills. Both programs have been
remarkably successful with the students earning far more than
their cost of materials while learning both CNC as well as
some important lessons about the role of the businessperson in
today’s society.
Forest City High School
manufacturing technology students formed a company to design,
build and sell key chains with the school symbol, an Indian.
Students came up with the idea on their own after discussing
the potential market for a number of different products that
they had conceived. The students developed a flow chart that
included all of the activities need to make and sell the key
chains. They start with 2-inch diameter plastic rod and slice
it into ¼ inch wafers with a band saw. The wafers then go
through several stages of sanding, buffing and polishing
before they are ready for the key operations that engrave the
design.
The Indian head design was
first drawn by students in an art class, then converted to an
electronic model by students in drafting class using computer
aided design (CAD) software. A few simple conversions and the
design was turned into a program that controls a computer
numerically controlled (CNC) gantry mill from Techno, New Hyde
Park, New York. The
DaVinci CNC mill, which costs less than $6000, can mill
virtually any design that can be drawn on a computer in wood,
plastic or soft metal. Despite its low cost, the machine is a
standard product used by Techno industrial customers as well
as educational institutions. It possesses 0.0005 inch
resolution, a top speed of 140 inches/min., and is used by
many manufacturers of millwork, kitchen counters, industrial
models and patterns, and a wide range of other wood and
plastic components.
The students sold the Indian
key chains for $2 and did special designs for $5. Sales were far higher than
the student’s estimates and could have been higher still if
the students had been able to produce more of the chains.
The sales covered all materials costs and with part of the
profits students had a breakfast party during one class
period. Echoing modern business practices, the top student
salesperson received a bonus. "It’s been one of the most
rewarding classes I’ve eve been involved in because the
students took charge of everything and I merely served as an
advisor whenever they asked me for help," Helmich
said. "We truly created a mock business. I’d be willing
to bet that these students are going to be more inclined to
create a business of their own later in life because of the
positive experience they had in this class."
 William Grothus has
focused his wood shop classes more on learning by doing than
on entrepreneurship yet the lessons learned seem to be similar
to the Forest City example. He saw his students becoming
interested in computers and wanted them to understand that a
computer was not just good for storing knowledge but also for
building things. He
convinced the district to purchase the DaVinci CNC machine
primarily by positioning it as a device to help students
increase their computer skills. This was no exaggeration --
the machine fabricates the part that has been created in
software to a tee, challenging the students to increase their
computer skills in order to raise the beauty and utility of
the objects that it produces.
The
DaVinci CNC mill is an industrial machine that is affordable
by educational institutions. The DaVinci has various
sizes available, from eight inches to 10 inches travel as the
smallest to machines big enough for a full sheet of plywood or
larger. The table for the clipboard and Corian products of Mr.
Grothus is 10 inches by 12 inches. Because of its relatively
large travel, accuracy and speed it can be used to make
"real" parts and not just wax models. This motivates
students to learn because there is a true sense of
accomplishment and ownership. Thus, using the DaVinci CNC mill
provides a tool for teaching not only CNC and CAD/CAM skills
but design, entrepreneurship, computers, math, teambuilding
and problem solving. It also enhances creativity.
When the CNC machine was first
delivered by Techno distributor Midwest Tech of Madrid, Iowa,
Grothus gave his eighth grade class the assignment of building
a treasure chest using hand tools, then programming and
machining an original design on its cover. This assignment
fits well with Grothus’ opinions on the future of education
and technology. "I have to admit that I am of the old
school of skill," Grothus said. "I am also of the
school of knowledge. You need both. But if you only have
technology knowledge, such as the World Wide Web, what are you
going to with it? Search the web, find it and do what with
it?"
 "I
delight in teaching and doing. I feel that I am meeting the
challenges of the future, if the students will just
cooperate," Grothus said, "but I do not see
abandoning the old arguments and skills. One of my values is
doing things in class rather than just learning. My class is
the only one in school where the boys and girls come into the
room and say: "Do we get to work today?" Learning by
doing is the best way to learn. Another value is driving a
nail with a hammer. If 90 degrees is not technology, I do not
know what is. Habitat for Humanity enjoys the hammer and nail
skill and so does everyone that lives in the house."
Because of their age, the
entrepreneurial instincts of Grothus’ junior high school
students are not quite as advanced as the Forest City High
School youth, but the potential is there. Grothus started by
challenging several of his best students to make something on
the machines and sell them for a profit. He enlisted a local
kitchen/custom bathroom remodeling company to contribute scrap
materials The kids are just getting started producing engraved
signs made out of Corian, ornaments and clipboards. Grothus
has challenged one of his more motivated seventh graders to
gross $1000 over the next year and has no doubt he can do it.
Both Grothus and Helmich agree
that the primary benefit of introducing entrepreneurship in
wood shop class is opening up their students eyes to what they
can accomplish if they set their minds to a task and obtain
the right tools and knowledge. "The gantry CNC mill
motivates students to learn because there is a true sense of
accomplishment and ownership," Grothus said. "Using
the DaVinci mill from Techno provides a tool not only for
teaching CNC and CAD/CAM skills for also design,
entrepreneurship, computer math, team building and problem
solving. If you want x, y, and z coordinates, they are
right there on the machine." Helmich said: "It’s
wonderful to see the look in kids' eyes after they have spent
a few hours learning how to do something and end up with a
tangible product that someone is willing to pay money for. They see that there is no
limit to what they can produce and, for many of them, that
feeling transfers over to increased self confidence and sense
of their own potential." |
