Sophie Sonnenfeld Photo
Les Sinnock leads students through the mobile lab, aimed at introducing them to high-tech manufacturing.
Huddled around a high-intensity microscope, Mauro-Sheridan eighth-grader Lauren Sellers and 12 of her classmates gasped as the tiny Abraham Lincoln statue etched into the penny came into full view.
The microscope is used by quality-control employees in advanced manufacturing.
The Mauro-Sheridan middle schoolers rotated through a 44-foot trailer parked outside the school Monday to learn about and experiment with such tools that manufacturers use to create jet planes, submarines, and helicopters.
They were participating in a Goodwin University Advanced Manufacturing Mobile Training Lab, which is scheduled to stop by five middle schools in New Haven to give kids a look into high-tech manufacturing jobs.
Sellers said she enjoyed learning the “cool science” from a laser engraver to precise measuring tools used in quality control inspections inside the mobile lab.
Lauren Sellers: “cool science.”
She said she especially liked seeing the high-intensity microscope: “I did not know that Abraham Lincoln was sitting on the chair in the memorial on the penny!”
Goodwin Quality Inspection Instructor and Lead Technologist Les Sinnock and Scott Kennedy, an instructor and driver of the Advanced Manufacturing Mobile Training Lab, led 120 seventh and eighth graders in groups of 14. They explained manufacturing processes including welding, engineering, and quality control. He then showed off the products of these processes and spoke about manufacturing employment opportunities in Connecticut.
“It’s the future of manufacturing. We no longer have people working on assembly lines. You have robots working on them but somebody’s gotta program them, somebody’s gotta build them, somebody’s gotta figure out how to make them and that’s these kids,” said Mauro-Sheridan Video Literacy Bill Slusky, who attended the lab session.
Magnet Resource Teacher Judy Goodrich gathered groups of students and walked them in front of the school into the mobile manufacturing training lab. She told them, “you can go to college and then do this kind of cool stuff. Or you can go to Eli Whitney or Platt Technical High School and then do this cool stuff. It’s just to give you some cool options for your future.” She encouraged the students to ask questions aboard the mobile lab.
Mauro-Sheridan students board the mobile manufacturing lab on Monday’s visit.
Goodrich said kids need to be aware of career options like advanced manufacturing. “If you’re not a college-bound person, if that’s not your thing there’s still a pathway for you to get a really wonderful job. Or if you want to go to college you can still move ahead into this kind of advanced manufacturing,” she said.
“It’s good for creative kids, especially hands-on kind of stuff that they’ve never learned about before,” she added. Goodrich said the program fit well with Mauro-Sheridan’s science, technology, and communications themes.
With a maker lounge, 3D printer, and hands-on scientific activities at school, many Mauro-Sheridan students have a foundation and interest in advanced manufacturing, Goodrich said. “They know that technology is not just a computer. It can be advanced technology.”
She said that Goodwin University’s partner in this effort, Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology (CCAT) Industry Ambassadors, will also be hosting Zoom informational webinars throughout the year for students on advanced manufacturing opportunities. They plan to meet virtually with students for 30 minutes every month to speak about their career path and answer questions.
Inside the trailer, Sinnock held up wooden designs and a cube made by a computer numerical control (CNC) machine and by a wood laser engraver. He pointed students to a sewing machine at the next station that allows manufacturers to stitch together leather and heavier textile fabrics.
At the following station, he showed the students a sheet metal brake that cuts metal. The metal, he said, “goes into all sorts of stuff” such as car exteriors, washing machines, dryers, stoves, and refrigerators.
Scott Kennedy shows the high-intensity microscope.
He then demonstrated precision measuring tools including an advanced ruler that can measure to thousandths of an inch called a caliber and a tool called a micrometer for measuring objects to ten-thousandths of an inch. “Very high precision tools are required to make parts for things like jet aircraft which we’re home to in this state,” he told them.
Students shifted to look at another station with a welding display.
Welding station in the mobile lab.
Sinnock explained that a filler metal is added at high heat to bond heavy metal pieces together for truck frames or submarines.
“There are some very good jobs out there so when you get out of high school you may consider doing this kind of work. It’s a good living and it’s interesting so it’s something to consider a couple of years from now,” Kennedy said at the end of the session.
One student asked what education level people need to enter advanced manufacturing. Kennedy responded that some jobs require only a certificate-level education with the completion of a 22-week course in quality control, for example. After that, people can start working for a company and making between $45,000 and $50,000 a year, he told them.
Guy LaBella holds up tee shirts for students.
Goodwin Director of University Relations Guy LaBella who is the point person for the lab listened to the tour and handed out purple and black tee-shirts to students after each session.
He said they aim to reach students as young as middle school because “they’re going to be making choices soon.” He said that making students aware of manufacturing opportunities can help inform choices to attend technical high schools, magnet schools, or other schools that have a manufacturing component.
“It raises awareness about career opportunities with good-paying jobs in advanced manufacturing and there is a dire need for us to build a pipeline,” LaBella said. He said the average age of employees at companies like Sikorsky and Pratt & Whitney is above 50. “They’re going to be retiring soon so we need to fill that gap,” he noted.
LaBella said New Haven and neighboring towns are a hub for manufacturing. “I think it’s critical that we reach out to big cities like New Haven, Waterbury, and Bridgeport.”
The lab is used both for outreach and for incumbent worker training. LaBella said they take the lab to manufacturers across the state and parts of Western Massachusetts, where they train employees on-site. “Most manufacturers don’t have a meeting room or a facility that’s conducive to training so we can take the mobile lab and transform it to a classroom,” he explained.
The lab is converted to hold 12 working stations and a Smartboard to host training in blueprint reading, conflict resolution, and lean manufacturing principles (how to manage operate and run a green manufacturing facility).
The mobile lab has been in operation for five years and has a generator. Outside, the trailer has an awning and built-in monitor to run presentations while kids wait outside sometimes in summer or spring. It is also equipped with air conditioning and heating for training and outreach in any season, LaBella said.
Trailer outside Mauro-Sheridan school.
In the past five years, he estimated, they have trained over 3,000 employees and reached more than 5,000 middle and high school students.
During the summer they were awarded a summer enrichment grant grant by the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving to visit five summer camps across the state. LaBella said the laser engraver and 3D printer are usually a favorite on visits with kids.
Last week 98 students at Beecher Magnet School and 101 students at Family Academy of Multilingual Exploration (FAME) had the chance to visit the mobile lab.
After a recent Zoom call with the Bridgeport Schools superintendent, who heard about the mobile lab in New Haven, they are now scheduled to visit 17 sites in Bridgeport starting Jan. 12 through the end of the year.
LaBella: “Manufacturing is very clean, it’s animated, and very high tech.”
“There’s still this stigma out there that manufacturing is my grandfather’s old dirty, dungy, greasy job which it really isn’t. It’s just the polar opposite today. Manufacturing is very clean, it’s animated, and very high tech,” LaBella said on these visits he is looking forward to addressing that stigma and making more students aware of future opportunities in advanced manufacturing.
This is such a great idea, I wish I had this type of career choices exposure when I was in middle school. We need advanced manufacturing and technology highly skilled employees for the future, and the best way to motivate and inspire young people to work towards their future career is to expose them to as many career options as possible so they can find the best fit for them.