The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Hydraulic claws featured at day camp
The skies were overcast outside of Auburn Career Center in Concord Township during the late morning hours of June 22.
But inside the school, solar cockroaches were in the spotlight.
The “roaches” on display actually were created as a student project at the 2018 Summer Manufacturing Institute.
In its third year, the event is a weeklong summer day camp with a manufacturing focus for fifthand sixth-graders from Lake and Geauga counties
The 2018 edition of the event kicked off with a girls-only Medical Manufacturing Week, held June 11-15. Thirteen girls participated in the program.
From June 18-22, during the second session of the camp, 24 boys and girls attended Aerospace Engineering Week. On June 22, campers exhibited their projects for family members, friends and local dignitaries, and then received certificates of completion during a special ceremony.
“This was our biggest and best year yet,” said Shannon Ranta, on-site director of the Summer Manufacturing Institute, which is sponsored by the Alliance for Working Together Foundation, Ohio Means Jobs Geauga County, Auburn Career Center and the office of U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.
In addition to the manufacturing that campers do at Auburn Career Center, the event incorporates financial literacy and marketing into the week’s activities, as well as tours of local advanced manufacturing sites.
Some of the area plants visited by aerospace engineering campers included Star Precision Technologies and Habco Tool and Development, both of Mentor.
“The campers see what (manufacturers) do for their processes, and we try to mimic those things with our projects,” Ranta said.
One project presented on June 22 was the Hydraulic Claw, which was completed by a team that included Leah Szmania, a fifth-grader at St. Gabriel’s Catholic School in Concord Township.
Leah explained that the claw device is controlled by water pressure provided through syringes.
“You have three syringes and they connect to another syringe that moves the claw,” she said.
Leah added that if air bubbles impede the flow of water, “it’s really hard for the claw to move.”
Another project, titled “Solar Cockroach,” was completed by a team including two sixth-graders: Jocelyn Bancroft of Madison Middle School, and Aidan Switalski of Wickliffe Middle School.
Jocelyn described the manufacturing process for the roaches this way: “We had a motor and solar panel and we take wires and solder it onto the positive and negative, and then we glue legs on. When you can take (a solar cockroach) out into sun, it should vibrate and move.”
At the certificate presentation on June 22 that concluded this year’s institute, Lake County Commissioner Daniel P. Troy enlightened the campers about how today there are more advanced manufacturing jobs than people with the right skills to fill these positions.
“We really need to get more of you young people fascinated with math and science and aware of what you can do in terms of manufacturing things,” he said.
Ranta said she already is looking forward to the 2019 Summer Manufacturing Institute.
“We’ll be expanding next year in some shape or form,” she said.