The workers at Eagle Manufacturing shook hands, handed out business cards they had printed and led visitors on tours of their business — all inside Brown County High School.
Seniors Luke Turnage and Dale Phelps ran a laser cutter, demonstrating how they cut out an Eagle keychain during the new facility’s open house on Sept. 18.
“It’s like everything is finally coming into fruition over the past three years. It’s like now we actually get to do what we learned,” Turnage said.
Eagle Manufacturing began this school year. Right now, it is open to juniors and seniors involved in engineering classes.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Students are developing products such as key rings, T-shirts, money clips, vinyl signs and decals. The vision is for students to design and create their own products and work with local businesses and community members to make items they need.
“There’s not a lot of people who have been into the technology as much as we have, and then also being able to learn new programs, dealing with new machines, building robots, making stuff on programs, it’s just fun,” Phelps said.
Brown County Schools students can start studying engineering in seventh grade. That’s what Phelps and Turnage did at that age with teacher Dan Lewellen, followed by a Project Lead the Way course in eighth grade.
Eagle Manufacturing is a place where they can test those skills and learn where they might fit into their career paths.
Participating students can train in business administration, engineering design, CNC machining and graphics/promotional materials.
CNC machinists make machine parts, laser and plasma cutting parts.
Engineering design workers work with 3D modeling to design products.
Students who focus on graphics and promotional materials will design products like T-shirts, trophies and other items.
Administration includes jobs like office manager and marketing manager.
Engineering and technology teacher Chris Townsend and industrial technology teacher Dean Keefauver serve as advisers to the business.
In August, Brown County Schools received a $500,000 grant from the ROI Ready Schools Initiative, and about $21,500 of that money has been set aside in phase one to help fund Eagle Manufacturing. It will buy supplies and equipment and send the instructors to the International Manufacturing and Trade Show, with the hope of sending the student managers to the show in the future.
During the school day, 20 students work between 45 minutes to an hour completing orders from people in the community and school district.
At the time of the open house on Sept. 18, Townsend said students were about three weeks into working at Eagle Manufacturing.
“They’re doing a fantastic job. We’ve had a couple of jobs I haven’t touched, that have come in, gone straight to Shelby (York) in design, then over to our office manager to quote. And then it gets approved, goes into production and invoice,” Townsend said.
“I haven’t touched any of it, which is awesome. We’re still working the kinks out, we’re going to have a few of those, but it’s fantastic. These kids are above and beyond. They’re great.”
The goal is to have students running the entire business by themselves come spring semester, with Keefauver and Townsend there to answer questions, Townsend said.
During the open house, Eagle Manufacturing had 10 jobs already listed on their task board, but orders are still being taken, Townsend said. Anyone who wishes to place an order can email him at [email protected].
“I’ll forward that on to our office manager and production manager. We can give a time estimate and a quote. Obviously, large orders will take us a while,” he said.
“Our biggest limitation right now is time. We’re in for an hour each day and that’s all we’ve got.”
Prepared for the future
A few feet away from Phelps and Turnage, senior Hunter Woodall was manning the CNC router and plasma machines. His duty during an Eagle Manufacturing work day to cut designs for different orders.
He held up a puzzle piece made from acrylic sheeting which he and his partners cut out for Enkei America Inc., a manufacturer in Columbus. Enkei was going to hang the puzzle pieces from the ceiling as decoration, Woodall said.
“It’s awesome. I love it,” Woodall said of Eagle Manufacturing.
“I think it’s a great entryway for anyone who wants to get into it (engineering). Even for jobs, I think it’s great for anyone who wants a job because of all of the stuff you learn, because your normal person is not going to have that.”
Woodall said he was trying to apply to work at Cummins after school to further his knowledge. “That way, when I go to college I’m already a step ahead,” he said.
Woodall wants to be an aerospace engineer. He wants to go to Purdue University and is considering joining the United States Military Marine Reserves.
Taking engineering courses in both junior high and high school has influenced his career path, he said.
“Without the engineering courses, I probably wouldn’t even be here, be working in engineering, because you have to have the experience,” he said.
He initially took Project Lead the Way engineering courses with Lewellen in junior high because he thought it would be “cool and fun.”
“We started doing 3D printing and designing things. I’m just like, ‘This is awesome.’ We had cool projects that we did that just made everything awesome. I just kept doing it,” he said.
Phelps plans to become an electrical lineman. He will attend a three-month classroom training course after graduation before starting his apprenticeship.
“I’ve always been a hands-on kind of person. Since I was little I have been building with Legos or whatever I can build with,” he said.
Turnage plans to go into the ROTC for the Air Force. He is undecided at this time what he wants his career with the Air Force to be, but he’s considering engineer, pilot or physicist.
Senior Brandon Mulryan also works the CNC Plasma and Router machines and in graphics as well. He’s been taking engineering courses since his freshman year and decided to join Eagle Manufacturing based on his experiences in Keefauver’s and Townsend’s classes.
Mulryan plans to go to the University of Northwestern Ohio to study diesel technology. “In there (the technology and engineering courses), we learn a lot of computer designing, which will help with diesel technology,” he said.
Corbin Sims, a junior, stood by a wall of 3D printers waiting to talk with visitors about his role in the engineering department. He has been working on his own project: A holder for a keyboard in Eagle Manufacturing’s graphics area.
“It was a lot more complex. … I had to shrink it down five inches,” he said.
“I was always a tinkerer with many things. I have hundreds of stories about doing miscellaneous things and tinkering.”
Sims said he has wanted to be a mechanical engineer for a long time, but now that he is learning more about the field and other career options, he’s not sure where his career path will lead him.
Senior Shelby York works in the graphics department designing products and shirts. She has taken three engineering courses in high school and others in junior high. She plans to study software engineering at Purdue University after completing her core classes at Indiana University.
“Ever since I was a kid I always wanted to deal with software. Whenever I went up to Purdue for their WOWiT (Windows of Opportunity for Women in Technology) programs and such, whenever they showed us some of their courses, I knew I really wanted to go into software engineering,” she said.
Townsend has taken a group of female students to the Purdue University WOWiT Camp in previous years.
“I love the fact that we get to do hands-on stuff on our own, run a business by ourselves and hand things out to the community to use as products,” York said of Eagle Manufacturing.
“We also get prepared for the future. If we’re going straight out of high school, or if we’re going to college, then off to the real world, we already know the gist of what to do, and we learned what’s needed for business, like preparedness and flexibility.”
