Tag Archives: Kent Career Tech Center

School News Network: Thanks to local firm, students learn to virtually design car parts

3-bottom, , ,

By Erin Albanese
School News Network

Kent Career Tech Center student Nathan Schaner learned about designing car components virtually by using professional tool and die stamping software on a classroom computer.

He was participating in a three-day training session on the software offered by Kevin Vormac, senior applications engineer for the firm AutoForm. The program exposed a dozen engineering students in the second year of the Tech Center’s Engineering & Architectural Design program to industry-level design.

The goal was to help prepare students for the local pool of engineering jobs, many at firms that use the expensive software, as well as for apprenticeships or college programs.

Kent Career Tech Center student Nathan Schaner listens to instructions on virtual stamping design

“Learning it here at (the Tech Center) is definitely beneficial,” said Nathan, who plans to major in mechanical engineering at Ferris State University. “I feel like I have a head start amongst all the other kids.”

The software eliminates the need for material or shop space and allows tweaking and tinkering. “We want for them to have some exposure to the software so when they do go out and look for a job they can put it on their resume,” Vormac said.

Nathan said he sees the value in learning digital design now. “This seems a lot more applicable and it’s easier for us to manipulate and do the correct things we need to do.”

Program instructor Larry Ridley said AutoForm is allowing the class to download the software onto 12 computer stations for use through the end of the school year. For a company to purchase the software for that many stations, the cost would be about $840,000.

Virtual design saves time and money, Ridley said, and has become standard in the industry. “It can do what they used to do by hand, that would take them four, five, six months,” he said. “Here, they can do their preliminary design in just a couple of weeks.”

Ridley regularly has students working in engineering while still enrolled at the Tech Center.  Many start as apprenticeships after graduation or go to college to pursue degrees. Engineers can earn more than $100,000 after eight or nine years in the industry, he said.

For more stories on area schools, visit the School News Network at schoolnewsnetwork.org.

School News Network: Sweet salute: Students create gingerbread home for veterans

3-bottom, ,

By Brett Atwood
School News Network


Kent Career Tech Center Hospitality students put their skills to the test, designing a sugary, candy-clad gingerbread house as a gift for Grand Rapids Home for Veterans residents. With help from Tech Center architecture students who made blueprints, they created a miniature vets’ home, complete with a frosting-covered roof and fondant residents.

For more stories on area schools, visit the School News Network’s website.

School News Network: Students invited to demo their social skills app at Samsung conference

3-bottom, , , ,

Former Tech Center student Keith Takens, left, and Marc Petz, a 3D Animation instructor, are headed to San Francisco for a development conference hosted by electronic giant Samsung

 

By James Harger

School News Network

 

A smartphone app developed by Kent Career Tech Center students to help autistic teens navigate social situations will be showcased on a national stage in November.

 

Two students and their 3D Animation & Game Design  Instructor Marc Petz, are headed to the Samsung Developer Conference in San Francisco to show off a smartphone app they created to help autistic teens develop their social skills.

 

They were invited to attend the conference after an earlier edition of the app finished in the Top 10 at the national “Solve For Tomorrow” competition sponsored by Samsung earlier this year.  His students have now upgraded their Virtual Reality (VR) application into an Augmented Reality (AR) application that can be loaded into a smartphone.

 

Avatars simulate hallway encounters, coaching autistic teenagers through social encounters they might otherwise find awkward or uncomfortable

“This is 100 percent student developed and expert guided,” said Petz, who was invited to the conference with two of his 3D graduates. The group plans to demonstrate their app from Samsung’s booth at the conference, which attracts thousands of software developers.

 

Their AR app uses avatars to coach autistic teenagers as they role-play their interaction with other teenagers. The social scenarios, such as a having conversation in a school hallway, were scripted with help from Mary Musto, a teacher consultant at Kent Transition Center with a background in Autism and Behavioral Therapy.

 

Petz and his students also worked with YETi CGI, a Wyoming-based company that develops electronic games and artificial intelligence products for Fortune 500 companies. Petz also teaches digital animation and game design as an adjunct professor at Ferris State University.

 

The animated avatars – or characters –  coach their users to make eye contact and respond to questions or comments  from the avatars, who appear in the settings in which the users find themselves.

 

“We’re bringing the technology to your reality,” said Petz. The app uses recorded voices instead of machine-generated speech to make the interactions seem more natural.

 

The smartphone app developed by students at Kent Career Tech Center offers several scenarios that can be used as coaching tools by autistic teenagers

“We know this has the potential of reaching a lot of people,” said Keith Takens, a Ferris State University sophomore who helped develop the program while he attended the Tech Center.

 

Takens, one of the students going to the Samsung conference, noted that up to 2 percent of the world’s population has autism to some degree.

 

Meanwhile, Petz’ students are continuing to develop new role-playing scenarios to the app. For example, methods of starting, maintaining and ending conversations are being added to the app.

 

The app is based on a web site that connects to the app, forgoing the need to download the app to a smartphone.  “It’s as accessible as Wikipedia,” said Takens, noting the app does not require the bandwidth needed for other streaming services such as Netflix.

 

Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.

School News Network: Virtual Reality Welding Training to Expand Student Options

3-bottom, , , ,

“We will see new opportunities for Tech Center students to earn college credit in welding technologies before finishing high school” – Tech Center Principal John Kraus (Photo courtesy School News Network)

The Michigan Department of Education announced that Kent ISD and 13 other ISDs and school districts across the state were awarded Career and Technical Education (CTE) Innovation and Equipment Grants.

 

The grants are intended to expand programs and purchase equipment in manufacturing-related areas. Kent ISD’s award of $300,000 will be used to purchase welding equipment including high-tech virtual reality training systems, expand current welding units in several Kent Career Tech Center programs, and provide welding training for adults, middle schoolers and in summer camps.

 

Campus Principal John Kraus said “coupled with robotics, welding technology is present in nearly every manufacturing environment. In addition to the virtual welders, we hope to acquire a high-tech robotic welder that will prepare students for a vast number of unfilled jobs right here in West Michigan.

 

“And through our established partnership with GRCC,” Kraus added, “we will see new opportunities for Tech Center students to earn college credit in welding technologies before finishing high school.”

 

Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.

School News Network: Why Pre-Labor Day? The Details

3-bottom, City of Kentwood, City of Wyoming, , , ,

Kent ISD Superintendent Ron Caniff, left (School News Network)

By Jaye Beeler

School News Network

 

Ron Caniff, superintendent of Kent ISD, says he did what 20 local superintendents asked him to do when he filed for a waiver in January with the Michigan Department of Education to start school before Labor Day. The ISD had asked for a waiver last year too, but withdrew it after discussions with the state dragged on.

 

But this go-round, when the authorization came through, superintendents didn’t quite expect it so fast. They went back to their communities to take their pulse. The result: 15 of 20 districts opted for the early start, while the remaining five stuck with the Tuesday after Labor Day, bound by multi-year collective bargaining agreements or summer construction projects.

 

While this year’s start dates are scattered, “All superintendents certainly understand and recognize the benefits of the common calendar and start date,” Caniff said. Those able to do so will try to align their calendars next year, but there is not yet “100 percent agreement” on the best start date, he added.

 

 

The three-year waiver impacts approximately 109,000 public district and charter school students. Caniff outlined the main rationale for a pre-Labor Day start:

 

  • Align Kent ISD school calendars with districts’ partner colleges and universities for dual enrollment or early/middle college opportunities. All traditional districts have a least one student participating;
  • Meet the state’s 180-day, 1,098-hour of instruction mandate, plus provide increased learning time for those taking state assessments, national exams like SAT and Advanced Placement tests in the spring.
  • Coincide semester’s end with the holiday break in December rather than administering final exams in late January;
  • Coordinate schedules for students enrolled in the Kent Career Tech Center and similar collaborative programs;
  • Summer’s over anyway for high school students in band and fall athletics who are already back and practicing.
  • Lastly, in a nod to tourism, districts with pre-Labor Day starts are taking Fridays off in August, giving parents the opportunity for long weekends.

 

Tech Center Up and Running

Despite districts’ varying opening days, classes began Monday for some 3,000 students in four Kent ISD campus programs: Kent Career Tech Center, Kent Innovation High, Kent Transition Center and MySchool@Kent.

 

“We’ve communicated that school starts Aug. 21 in every way possible, except carrier pigeon,” Tech Center Principal John Kraus said. “We are doing relevant instruction the first two weeks of school.”

 

For the students who don’t drive themselves to campus, district high schools will operate a shuttle bus to and from the ISD campus. If some students simply can’t start until their local districts began Sept. 5, the ISD will work with students one-on-one to remediate or to provide safety instructions that they missed, Kraus said.

 

“Nobody is going to put a student in a situation where they have not completed required safety training,” Kraus said. “Whether it is knife skills in culinary or ladder safety in construction, we’re committed to teaching our curriculum and won’t compromise on safety.”