May 19, 2014 at 4:14 p.m.
First K-12 Fab Lab in Wisconsin coming to Three Lakes school
First K-12 Fab Lab in Wisconsin coming to Three Lakes school
The plan is to have the lab, which will be the first K-12 lab in a Wisconsin K-12 school and fifth in the state, up and running by September for the beginning of the new school year.
According to Three Lakes High School Principal Dr. William Greb, the opportunities the lab offers reach far beyond anything the school has offered before.
"It's going to make a world of difference for our students," Greb said. "It is comprised of off-the-shelf industrial-grade fabrication electronics tools crafted in open source software programs written by researchers at MIT Center for Bits and Atoms. We have a charter with MIT at this point now and once the equipment is in place and we have it opened to the public, that charter will be on the books."
Equipment in the lab includes, but is not limited to, a milling machine, a plasma cutter, multiple 3D printers, laser engravers, a MicroScribe and vinyl cutters, all of which will allow students to turn their wildest dreams into reality.
"Literally anything you can imagine, you can make," Greb said. "One of our teachers has said where other kids are going to be buying kits and building from kits, our kids will design their own parts, build their own machines and blow everything else right out of the water. They'll take these creations back to the physics lab, back to the chemistry lab, whether it's figuring out a gear ratio to make something move faster or easier or using less energy, you name it."
The lab will allow the district to create certificates students can strive to obtain, signifying their readiness to enter the workforce. The certificates won't just be available to students, however, members of the public will have the opportunity to become workforce-ready certified as well.
"(Three Lakes School District guidance counselor Gene) Welhoefer has put together five certificates that would be available to our students, and community members can come in and work towards these work-ready certificates as well," Greb said. "We have a number of industries already on board. They have written letters of commitment that if somebody walks in the door with a certificate of this nature, it's somebody they're interested in hiring."
That will be the lab's main goal, meeting the demand of local industries in need of work-ready employees.
"We're looking at work-ready students in interesting and high-paying jobs," Greb said.
"It will be open to the public as well and we're going to do everything in our power to enable them to work towards these certificates also."
That's good news for local industry, as Greb said this is something they have wanted to see happen for many years, but nothing has come of it at the technical college level. If that means Three Lakes has to lead the way, that's fine with Greb as he said the creation of such a lab needs to happen sooner rather than later.
"We're getting ahead of the curve. This is something the technical colleges have not tapped into yet. When we started talking with industry leaders, they said this is what they've been asking for, this is what they've wanted for years," Greb said. "They asked why the technical colleges haven't gotten on board to make this happen and, frankly, we don't have an answer for that because this is what should be happening."
The lab is expected to make a major difference in the education of younger students as well.
"We adopted a new science curriculum that came out from the federal government - Next Generation Science - and the reason we did that is because of the engineering component," Greb said.
"It's very well laid out with activities galore that teachers don't have to reinvent the wheel for. It's pre-K through 12, ... so we can take equipment right out of the lab and bring it into the elementary classrooms and literally light up their world with things you see on the SyFy channel."
Welhoefer said the main reason for including the younger students right away is to expose them to different scientific concepts to see what piques their interest.
"One of the reasons to start at the elementary school is that learning is very exponential where if you are exposed to a concept, you are going to pick up a lot of fringe education and direct education just from having experiences, seeing things, being exposed to things," Welhoefer said.
"If you don't have that base knowledge where you haven't been exposed to it, you miss a lot of that knowledge, so we're beginning at the early grades so they can have some exposure."
It's not all about science and engineering, either. The lab can also be used by art classes.
"We're throwing in the arts as well, bringing our high school art teacher in for training this summer to be able to utilize some of this equipment," Greb said. "So it's not just the students that want to get into engineering, it's going to cover all facets of education. We're trying to touch every student in some way."
"The manufacturing and design world needs creative people so we're not pigeon-holing any students, we're going to include as many as we possibly can," Welhoefer added.
Reaching and educating as many students as possible is paramount because one of the over-arching goals of the lab is to create a workforce ready to meet the needs of the businesses in the area.
"The thing we want to bring to these businesses is a talent pipeline," Welhoefer said.
That pipeline will hopefully help businesses in the Northwoods expand while also making the area an attractive location for new businesses.
"It's not just about our kids. We would like to see this bring high-tech industry to our neighborhood and we'd like to have kids walk out of the school ready to work there," Greb said.
That goal sits well with Roger Luce, executive director of the Oneida County Economic Development Corporation.
"The implications are huge for the county and the surrounding region of installing this Fab Lab in Three Lakes," Luce said in a press release announcing the creation of the lab.
"In the Fab Lab, we're training the workers of tomorrow and giving them the high-tech skills they need to secure jobs right here in Oneida County at companies such as Printpack, ABX and others. These are high-tech, high-paying jobs we're talking about with these employers. The Fab Lab is the tech ed of the 21st century, only these students aren't learning how to use a drill press, they're operating 3D printers with Solid Works software and cutting precision parts with laser engravers. There are companies that will hire these students right out of high school and they'll be operating computer-controlled machinery from a touch screen panel. People think 'manufacturing job' and the wrong image comes into their heads. Coming out of the Fab Lab, these are jobs that parents would want their children to have."
For those interested in learning more about the lab, Greb said the district will be scheduling monthly tours of the facility in the second or third month of the 2014-'15 school year.
Marcus Nesemann may be reached at [email protected].
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