New Technology for Woods
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John Hubbard, Staff Writer
February 9, 2012
Filed under Student Life
This year, Bob Smith’s production technology class unveiled its newest machinery. Production Technology, commonly called “woods,” is a class that teaches students to use their minds, but mainly their hands, to create real and novel items. Recently, this class received a large grant from the State of California which the Campbell Union High School District then matched, leading to the purchase of new Computer Numerical Control (CNC) lathes and mills, and a laser engraver.
What do these new items do? The lathes and mills allow students to use computers to visualize what they want, and then use the machine to create their vision. Student’s can simply design their piece of work on the computer screen, and the machine creates it for them. These two new machines motivate kids by allowing them to use the latest in production technology and allowing them to be able to prepare for such technology in the future. Madison Ng said, “It feels like we are using things we will see at a real job some day.” These new items promote new ideas for careers for these students in such areas like production technology.
These new machines don’t just challenge the creativity of the students’ minds, but they also influence the use of other subjects such as geometry and math to help give them the results they want.
Smith, the chair of the Industrial Technology Department, had nothing but great things to say about these new machines. He says, “The school district had the foresight to see this as a valuable way to move education in the right direction for our students. Even when other districts are eliminating Career Technology Education classes to focus on core subjects, our district has supported future-focused choices for kids.”
Kids participating in the class have also said good things about the machines. Katrina Campi said, “I can apply what I’ve learned in almost any career.” Ana Lopez said, “It looks really high tech…It’s the coolest part of the class.” Ng had even more things to say, “it’s fun how we can hook up machines to the computer to control them and our parents couldn’t.”
“‘Wow’ and ‘cool’ are common responses [among students],” says Smith.