PHOTOS AND STORY BY ALLISON SCHWEIZER
With the help of the Fort Hays State University’s Technology and Engineering Educators Collegiate Association students, FHSU hosted the 60th annual Western Kansas Technology Education Fair on Friday May 3rd.
Students grades 6-12 who are enrolled in an industrial education or technology course taught by a certified industrial education/technology or STEM teacher were eligible to submit an entry. Schools from all around the state of Kansas packed up their projects and hauled them to the Technology Fair where their works were put on display in the Gross Memorial Coliseum to be viewed and judged.
The projects featured at the fair included all kinds of woodworking, furniture, computer-aided design drawings, 3D printing, metal works, and more. The four categories include Communication Systems; Power, Energy & Transportation Systems; Production Systems; and Multi-Pupil Activities. The projects on display must have been created during the current school year and had to be completed and in their final form.
The Coliseum garage doors opened up on Thursday as the schools started unloading their projects that they had been working hard on all year to bring to this event. The next day the public was invited to walk around and browse the students’ creations from 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Friday.
Each project was judged and then awarded with a ribbon or medal. Blue ribbons were awarded to first place, red ribbons for “excellent” second place and white ribbons “good” in third place. Medals were then awarded to students in each grade classification. The drafting projects were judged on line weight, lettering, dimensions, and overall appearance while woodworking was judged on design, construction, and finish.
One of the event’s judges was, Richard Rome, a retired teacher from Hugoton, said that he looks at the overall design first and whether the piece looks proportionate and symmetrical. He tries to not look back and forth between projects and compare, but only looks at the project he is judging. He then inspects the construction and looks at how solid it is and how it was put together, whether the student used joinery, screws or nails.
Next, he examines doors and drawers to see if they were put together correctly and if they work. He then looks to see how many different processes the student had to use to create their project. The more processes and the more intricate of a piece, the better. Finally, he looks at the finish, looking closely for sanding marks, runds, streaks or saw marks. “It sounds like a lot to look over but all this only takes me about 30 to 40 seconds to complete before coming to a final conclusion on the ranking of the work” said Rome.
With the new trend of Tiny Houses, Ness City even built a tiny house of their own and brought it to the competition.
We also can’t forget about the women as they came to represent this year as a team of all females built a stock trailer.
Amy Cassel, the instructor from Wabaunsee, had four students; Kinsey Stuewe, Dillion Spellman, Luke Barber and Sean Dugger, create an Advanced CAD 3D replica of their Main Building from 1939. The 25th scale replica consisted of 5,106 limestone and took 900 hours of work.
Cristian Santos from Salina Central built a working electric guitar out of mahogany walnut which only look him around a month and a half.
From Kiowa County, Senior, William Scott, built a puzzle table for his mother. It took him all year to build it out of oak wood with green felt inside. When asked what the hardest part was for him he stated “the drawers at the bottom were the hardest to perfect.”
“Woodworking is the art of covering up your mistakes” Ethan Dickerson of Natoma, said when telling about his black walnut dresser he made for himself complete with a mirror with two turn pieces on each side. While the dresser was beautiful and stood out with its blue ribbon and metal proudly hanging from the front, Ethan stated “ my dresser consists of many mistakes, they are just not visible to anyone else”.
The dresser was topped off with a bar lazy S brand on top which he routed out with a dremel and then filled in with epoxy.
Two students from Nickerson– Joe Tuxhorn and Matt Meadows brought a grill table that they made together. It will go up for sale at the end of the year and their metals teacher, Trey Jones might just have to buy it for his new deck.
The Nickerson woods teacher, John Close, stated “I take my students to the fair for them to be able to show off their projects that they have built throughout the year. I think it’s a great opportunity to see what other students are capable of building.”
When asked why it benefited his students he states that “Students take a significant amount of pride in the projects that they have devoted so much time into, I enjoy doing a large senior project for the students to reflect on in the future as well as testing their skills that they have gained over the past years,” Close said.
There were also live competitions on Friday such as, Communication, Problem Solving, Power and Energy Metric 500 Dragster, and Technology Challenge.
The Communication competition tested students on being able to sell a product, service or organization.
The Problem Solving competition presented students with a technical problem, students then had to work together with their team to find the best solution.
The Power and Energy Metric 500 Dragster competition let students race their dragster cars. This allowed the students to show off their skills in many areas such as creative design, precision drawings, and construction. The cars need to have an aerodynamic design and made with the correct materials.
The Technology Challenge competition allowed the students to compete against each other in a quiz bowl setting where they were able to show their knowledge in all areas of technology.
The day concluded with an awards ceremony where awards were given to a student that the judges believed was the best in each division and each grade classification. An award was also given out to the class or group in each grade that the judges believed had the best entries in the multi-pupil activity division.
The Ed David Award went to the one student who the judges deem had the most outstanding production entry. The Dennis McKee Award was presented to the class that the judges feel had the most outstanding multi-pupil entry. The Ralph Huffman Award went to the student that showed the best power and energy entry. The C.R. Cain Award was given to a student that had the most outstanding communication entry. The Ross Beach Award is presented to the school that showed excellence in giving their students a great technology program and education. Lastly, the Fred Ruda Award was given to a student whose project was chosen as the people’s choice award and was the fair’s favorite.
The Technology Fair is a great place for students from all over the state to come and work together as teams, compete against other schools, and to apply and demonstrate what they have learned throughout the year in their tech classes. Students are able to show off their great projects that they have poured hours of hard work into, but they are also able to see other projects which shows them new ideas that they could be creating. Technology is always changing, therefore, so is the technology fair. Every year there are new kinds of projects being built. It is amazing to be able to see the progression with what the students are able to create.