Published: June 08, 2008 07:40 pm      

Q&A: Lockport technology has lots to offer

It’s not just shop class anymore.

Robotics, programming, engineering and computer-aided drafting are just some of the things Lockport High School students are learning in the technology department.

Students also participate in competitions such as the annual “Tech Wars” held at Niagara County Community College in Sanborn, or the FIRST Robotics team. Lockport won the Tech Wars Cup this year at NCCC by a big margin. The success continued as the Lockport 1507 Warlocks robotics team claimed a second place and a third place finish in two regional tournaments held in Toronto and Rochester.

Competition isn’t the only thing the technology department offers Lockport students. For those who have an interest in anything related to technology, it offers a starting point for what could be an interesting and fulfilling career. Students, sometimes as early as middle school, are introduced and encouraged to participate both in the classes and competitions. The classes they take in technology can also give them college credit. The department is also a part of the Career Pathways Tech Prep consortium which helps them to bring in programs and equipment.

Lockport technology teacher Gary Caudill spoke to the Union-Sun & Journal on Friday about the department itself, what’s new about it and what advantages it offers students.

•••



QUESTION: Other than the Tech Wars and FIRST robotics, what else are the tech students involved in?



ANSWER: Well we competed at the Erie Community College Tech Wars for the first time this year. We just took the robotics class and competed in two competitions and made it to the semifinals in both of those. Our home repairs class does a construction seminar with the ECC South campus. The kids go to a construction site for the day and they let them drive the heavy equipment and things like that. They introduce them to that kind of stuff.

•••



Q: Has the number of students participating in the tech classes increased over the years?



A: We’re servicing more kids; we have more kids in our classes than we did now than we did four or five years ago even though the high school population has decreased. It’s probably decreased three or four hundred kids or so in the past three or four years. But we are doing more with the kids who are here.

•••



Q: What are some of the things students do in the classes?



A: I teach principles of engineering class, which the kids learn through projects all of the different types of engineering. They do bridges for civil engineering, and kids are building right now an electric car for electrical engineering. Some are building a catapult for mechanical engineering. We just finished up for architectural engineering; the kids designed a house on the computer and built a replica model of the house. So they are getting exposed to more engineering, where in the past it was more machines. We are losing a lot of machine jobs around here, but there is still a demand for engineers. So we’ve kind of changed our focus from the shop class to more of an academic oriented, engineering philosophy. Our CAD (computer aided drawing) class has doubled in size in the past four or five years. We have six different drawing classes they can take, including introduction, model and animation and there’s a year long architecture class. So there is a lot of computer CAD stuff being done here. We work with NCCC quite a bit with the CAD. We are on a committee over there to look at bringing in Solid Works and Pro E, which are two different CAD programs that are becoming very popular all over the country. We currently use Auto Desk. We’re trying to get licensing agreements to teach those with the Auto Desk program. So there is more technical, and while we haven’t gotten rid of the shop class, the emphasis is different.

•••



Q: Is there anything being added to the tech program?



A: We’re designing this summer a Web page design course, and the following summer we will work on the programming C++ course that we will be offering the year after. This year we are working on the Web page design course, so that will be offered the following year. We’re finding a demand for programming, and we do a little of it in the robotics class and more of it on the robotics team. But we are getting a lot of kids who go off to college who come back and say the first thing we have to learn is this programming. We’re trying to fill that void here.

•••



Q: Anything you’d like to add?



A: A lot of our kids can get college credit for taking our classes. It’s free; our students can get credit for digital electronics, robotics for introductory drawing, for CAD. They can leave her with almost an entire semester done. We have students at the middle school level, on the LEGO robotics team, who come to the high school and ask to be on the team. We don’t have to recruit. A lot of students don’t know what else is out there other than teaching as a profession because they’ve been around that their whole lives. But we expose them to something different. If you like math and science, this is the place to be.

Contact reporter Joe Olenick

at 439-9222, ext. 6241.