Summer Manufacturing Camp Closes with Skills Demonstrations

SALEM, Ohio – Crestview middle school student Owen Lindsay held up a robotic Sphero, demonstrating what it could do in front of a group of parents and teachers Friday at the close of the Columbiana County Summer Manufacturing Camp.

As part of the camp, students learned coding skills and toured manufacturing sites in the area throughout the week.

“It was fun,” said Owen, a seventh grade Crestview student. “We learned all about the [Sphero] robots and how they work – about all the lights and sounds they can do, how they move.”

Owen said he learned programming about the orientation of the robot, which way it is facing and whether it is tilted up or down, right or left. For his project, Owen programmed his robot to act as a navigating compass, capable of telling him which direction it was facing and complete with a flashlight that came on when he walked into a dark part of the room.

“I thought it was fun because we got to learn how to program it how to do a bunch of different stuff,” said Gianna Strotz, who will be an eighth grader at West Branch this school year. Gianna took what she learned and programmed the Sphero to act as a Magic 8 Ball, not only verbally answering questions but with the visual cues of smile, frown and question mark emojis as representations of yes, no and maybe.

After spending two hours on programming each day, the students spent the afternoons visiting local manufacturers CTM, Ventra, Compco and Humtown. Both Gianna and Owen said they were impressed with the sand molds at the Humtown facility.

In only its first year, both students said they wanted to participate in the Columbiana County Manufacturing Camp as soon as they heard about it. “I thought it was a good opportunity,” Gianna said.

On Friday, students invited their parents to see what they had been working on, demonstrating the programming they had learned. Jeff Gill, who spent 20 years teaching computer science in Salem schools and is a lab instructor teaching robotics with the Columbiana County Educational Service Center, said the skills students learned include programming to control the Sphero’s accelerometer, gyroscope sensor and ambient light sensor. They also learned to problem solve when something didn’t go right.

While most of the students had little to no coding experience when they arrived at the camp Monday, they picked it up quickly. Before long, when Gill would offer a problem to solve, the students were able to recognize what programming would be needed to solve it.

“They grasped it quick,” Gill said. “They grasped looping and what it’s good for. They grasped IF statements, decision making.”

Gill said he wishes more schools offered entire classes in coding and programming, adding he has seen students use those skills to go into careers in robotics, electrical engineering and computer science.

The Summer Manufacturing Camp was one of 50 across Ohio this year organized with the help of U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who started the initiative in 2013 to help the state shake off the Rust Belt stigma and introduce students to good-paying manufacturing and industry careers in their own communities.

Brown, who appeared Friday via video, sent representative Caleb Nolton to hand out completion certificates. The event also was attended by Livia Shmavonia, who serves as the White House’s director of the Made in America office within the Office of Management and Budget, which leads the effort to make sure federal dollars are spent on products – including electric vehicle chargers and chips – that are made in America and that workers here are trained for the jobs of the future.

“I am so excited to have seen the incredible work that you all have accomplished over this past week,” Shmavonia told the students after their presentations.

Nolton said in only its first year, the Columbiana County camp did a “fantastic job,” and he hopes this one continues next year.

The camp was held at the Sustainable Opportunity Development Center in Salem’s industrial park where Julie Needs, SOD Center director, said they have had more than 3,500 people from 125 different companies spend 18,000 hours taking customized training classes. Many of the 200 classes they have taught are eligible for TechCred reimbursement, allowing employers to upskill their employees.

Needs invited the students to return and sit in on classes at the facility, which recently added AC/DC, hydraulics and pneumatic training opportunities.

The camp was made possible with the help of the Ohio State University Extension, which provided the Sphero robots and iPads used to program them. Audrey Dimmerling, an educator for 4-H youth development, said the robots came to the county through a Clover Codes grant through the OSU Extension, along with some curriculum ideas.

“It was a really nice collaboration, and we had our intern come every day and offer some team building and icebreaker activities, Dimmerling said. “This was a group of kids from around the county, and they got to know each other. We were happy to be a part of it.”

In addition to the students, the week included an opportunity for teachers to visit local manufacturers and learn about some of the resources and companies available to bring more information about industry into the classrooms.

Other partners included the Columbiana County ESC, the Columbiana County Business Advisory Council, Ashland University, the Dale Hileman Legacy Fund, TruCut, Compco, Crestview Schools, CTM Labeling, Hickey Metals, Ventra, Humtown, the OSU Extension, the Mahoning Valley Manufacturers Coalition and Vista AST.

Pictured at top: From left are students Taylor Jeffries, Beaver Local; Gianna Strotz, West Branch; Isaac Hively, Crestview; Elijah McCurdy, Lisbon; Andrew Petersen, Lisbon; Gareth Mercer, Crestview; and Owen Lindsay, Crestview.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.