Trinity H.S. unveils state-of-the-art fab lab
Trinity High School students Jackson Quedenfeld, left, and Mason McAlister hold items they made with 3-D printers in the Trinity High School fab lab. Both students will attend Penn State for mechanical engineering in the fall.
Trinity High School students Abigail Cermak, right, and Julia Crumrine work on their project in the school’s fab lab.
Local business leaders, lawmakers, educators and others joined students and staff at Trinity High School Thursday as the school district celebrated the grand opening of its fab lab.
A fab lab, short for fabrication laboratory, is a small-scale workshop equipped with an assortment of computer-controlled tools designed for digital fabrication.
Equipment in the Trinity fab lab includes a computer numerical controlled router, 3-D printers, a vinyl cutter and drones.
In addition, the fab lab houses laptops with the software necessary to control the machines, and a video conferencing system that will enable other groups to participate in fab lab projects online.
“This is what we’ve been wanting for our students,” said Dr. Michael Lucas, superintendent. “We’ve been wanting opportunities for them to think like engineers, to build and create like engineers. This is the way of the future when it comes to education, and now we finally have the resources our teachers have been asking for and our kids have been asking for.”
Lucas said the fab lab, which supports this district’s science, technology, engineering, arts and math initiative, was funded through grants and is the result of a collaborative effort.
He thanked a wide range of individuals and groups who played a role in getting the fab lab project going, including Intermediate Unit 1, which loaned its mobile fab lab to Trinity School District for two weeks in 2015.
Technology education department teachers Todd Crissman and John Husk, along with students, demonstrated how equipment in the fab lab works, and talked about real-life applications the technology has in an array of occupations.
For example, said Husk, farmers can program drones to fly the entire length of a fence line to determine if a tree fell across any portion during a storm.”The drone can be programmed to go fly corner to corner to corner of the fence row, videotape it, come back, and you pull out your SD card, put it in the computer and see if a tree fell across the fence line,” said Husk, who, along with Crissman, is a certified drone instructor and will be able to certify students as drone pilots.
Two students, seniors Mason McAlister and Jackson Quedenfeld, who are co-captains of the Battlebots team, said they were excited to have the opportunity to use the fab lab while still in high school.
“I never expected we would get all this cool stuff,” said McAlister, who plans to attend Penn State University at Behrend in the fall and major in mechanical engineering. “It’s such advanced technology. I thought it was a cool idea to get this, but I never thought I’d get to use it. I definitely enjoy the 3-D printers. I use them a lot. I’ve used probably two whole spools of plastic already. I can’t wait to use the CNC router.”
The school district also offers fab lab sessions for adults, who will have an opportunity to learn about fab lab technology and be given access to the tools and technology in the lab. The first classes will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays for two weeks, beginning March 13. A link to sign up for the classes is available on the district website, www.trinitypride.org.
Other school districts also will be provided with opportunities to use the fab lab.
Principal Thomas Samosky said other departments, ranging from physics to family and consumer science, are collaborating with the technology education department for projects.
The FCS department, for example, teamed with the tech ed department to produce Trinity-themed cornhole boards, which the business department plans to market.
“We cut (the boards) out on the router and we are incorporating the business department to market it. We got the FCS department to sew bean bags, and the art department will do custom orders. We’re thinking of doing an entrepreneurial class where we get orders, make these, ship them out, and whatever money we make goes back into the program,” said Crissman. “By having the fab lab, we’re giving our kids a leg up on other schools. We get kids who want to go into engineering and are really smart in the physics aspect, but when it comes to making something, they really don’t have that capability. Getting their hands dirty here has helped tremendously to prepare kids.”