Career tech students make crafts for teachers

Franklin County’s cabinet-making students in the career technical department recently took on a project that allowed them to collaborate with local teachers and students.

This project allowed seven classrooms to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday in a creative way.

According to instructor Todd Johnson, the cabinet-making students used their CNC router to cut out wooden turkey designs for classrooms to use. This project allowed the second-year cabinet-making students to work with computer aid design software to program the router for various tool paths. The students also sanded and lacquer primed the pieces, which gave them experience with spraying finishes.

“I am hopeful that we can begin to really hone in on our CNC use and shift much of our focus to its daily operation to really give students the technology foundation they need to enter the workplace in a cabinet manufacturing field,” Johnson said.

Johnson designed and cut a prototype design, which he sent a picture of to all of the teachers in the Franklin County School system. Interested teachers were encouraged to contact him for pricing information.

“We tried to keep it very affordable for teachers to encourage teachers to collaborate with our program for similar services that we could offer for an entire class,” Johnson said.

Seven teachers placed orders, which ranged from 16-40 turkeys. Student cut about 200 turkeys – about 400 individual parts.

“I think that we have really opened a door for teachers to access our program and collaborate with us to benefit my students and theirs,” Johnson said. “The program can provide teaching tools for teachers, be it paintable projects or complex STEM projects.”

Teachers have also reached out to Johnson to create Chromebook carts for the classrooms.