Young Manufacturers Academy Teaching Work, Life Skills
by August 7, 2015 4:00 pm 185 views
What can you make with a cupcake holder, Mason jar lids, twine, a ruler and tape?
Three groups of Mississippi County high school students spent Friday, building a project with those materials and learning more about life.
The Arkansas Northeastern College Technical Center at Burdette hosted the Young Manufacturers Academy this week, with 14 students from Armorel, Blytheville, Gosnell, KIPP and Osceola learning about manufacturing.
The program, sponsored by the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce, helps to teach students about manufacturing, robotics, sales and marketing and team building.
The academy started Monday (Aug. 3) with the students traveling all over Mississippi County to learn.
Several area companies, like Big River Steel, DENSO, Kagome and Nucor, helped with the academy and allowed the students to visit their plants, officials said.
Sherri Bennett, an official at the technical center, said the academy received a $5,000 grant from the Haas Foundation to help pay for the event.
Each of the students were given $25 a day to attend, with each student eligible to receive incentive pay for good work.
Bennett said the plan teaches students valuable work skills and real life experience.
She said the campus – the former Cotton Boll Technical Institute – has worked for years to help students learn job skills.
One project allows high school students to take concurrent high school and college classes, free of charge.
The center offers a career readiness certificate, teaching finance and soft skills like resume building and preparing for job interviews for students.
The center also has an internship program with Tenaris Steel in Blytheville for eight high school students in Mississippi County.
The students spend four hours a day, Monday through Friday, during the school year working at the steel company.
In addition to getting work experience, Bennett said the students earn $9.50 an hour.
PROJECT
After touring Tenaris Friday morning, the students went back to the technical center to start on their projects.
The students had 45 minutes to develop a project to help people with special needs.
Before starting, the students had to create a drawing of the project and use only the items that were inside a plastic bag.
The first place winner, called the “SN-5”, was a part helicopter, part car.
The vehicle’s functions would be controlled by buttons, voice control and a head set.
A “Help in Nator” finished second, while a movable ramp picked up third place.
The “Help in Nator” would use sign language and help people who are blind. The movable ramp could be used to help people who have trouble walking with leverage and would be padded in case the person fell.