Minnesota law prevents anyone under the age of 18 from working on the factory floor. Because of this, many Minnesota teens choose a career path without even seeing what a factory looks like, or knowing about manufacturing's need for skilled workers.
Across the state, partnerships among businesses, schools and government agencies are helping to bridge that experience gap. The Stillwater Area Public Schools, for example, offer a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) program, described as "rigorous curriculum applied to real-world settings."
Learning rooted in experience
One of many elements of STEM is a summer "Robotics Academy." Students design and build robots that do tasks like scooping up ping pong balls and transferring them to a bin. Besides learning the principles of mechanics, pneumatics and computerized numeric controls (CNC), they also tour a local precision manufacturing company. The academy's grand finale is a "coopetition," where teams scores points on assigned tasks.
This summer, the Robotics Academy offered a middle school program and first-year and second-year high school programs. In the second-year academy, students do their own CNC programming, creating robots that navigate a maze.
Students were impressed by their tour of Graco in Rogers, where they saw dozens of robotic machines in operation. Teachers and Graco engineers explained how "real-world" robotics are built on the same principles of engineering and mathematics that they were learning at the academy.
Robots provide direction
By the end of their second year in the Robotics Academy, two Stillwater students had learned enough to choose a career direction.
Both were fascinated by the scope and sophistication of robotics they had seen at Graco. The stereotype of manufacturing as a low-tech industry without challenges or rewards is gone for good.
Stillwater Area Public Schools has created a website to share information on STEM and other programs: www.innovativeprogramsineducation.com.
Laura French is principal of Words Into Action, Inc., and is a freelance writer from Roseville.
