Students in Christine Race’s Advance Manufacturing Systems class finished the year by completing a final project that took them through all aspects of manufacturing a product – from design through final sale.
Five students – ranging in grades 10-12 – took part in the half-year class.
The students who were part of the class were Caidyn Lambrecht (senior), Edward Henriksen-Duvall (junior), Cooper Finch (sophomore), Aiden Gregory (sophomore), and Fiona Chen (sophomore).
For this project, students began brainstorming product ideas they could design and produce at the beginning of April. The products needed to fit a timeline and also had to use available technology in the workspace.
Each of the students created a formal presentation that they then had to pitch to one another as well as Mr. Okoniewski’s first-period chemistry class. After fielding questions, the group determined a gunrack was the best product to move forward with as it met expectations and product criteria, as well as being marketable in our area.
Following the decision, students broke into two branches of manufacturing – research and development, and marketing and finance.
Within each of those branches, students worked to create working drawings and a prototype for testing. The marketing and finance students developed fliers, order forms, and a company spreadsheet to track investments, purchases, and pre-sales.
Once the prototype was completed, Mrs. Race took the product home and had her husband test it out with various long guns. Some design features needed to be adjusted to accommodate different aspects, such as a scope size and longer models. With these changes in hand, students were confident the rack would hold most guns.
As drawings were updated, students worked to produce a process planning sheet that took into consideration all aspects of the machining, storage, glue-up, etc., to produce 10 racks.
The branches were made up as follows:
Marketing and finance: Cooper Finch and Aiden Gregory.
Research and development: Caidyn Lambrecht, Edward Henricksen-Duvall, and Fiona Chen.
All students participated in the production of the product. Cooper Finch was the production foreman, and Aiden Gregory was in charge of quality control.
Some of the strongest parts of the project including designing with purpose, testing prototypes prior to mass production, and money management.
During the process, students needed to focus on several areas to make sure the final product was worthy of being sold.
The first was the redesign, but also quality control – where students had to inspect the material and make decisions based on natural defects in material. Also, they learned that mass production is about specialization. Students began to see their strengths and weaknesses and they identified who was best using specific machinery. This included creating files to be laser engraved for both template development and personalization.
The class wishes to thank Quality Hardwoods and Jess F. Howes for working with the students, fielding calls, discussing pricing, and providing local support to the students.
A great project with a solid final product. Amazing work by all involved!
Please find more photos on our Facebook page!