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Tri Star Career Compact welding program students designed and manufactured a bicycle rack for Grand Lake St. Marys State Park.
CELINA - What began as a few ad hoc community-minded initiatives has grown into a formal annual project for Aaron Schmitt's welding program - the design and manufacture of bicycle racks and other pieces of equipment that benefit towns in the nine school districts comprising Tri Star Career Compact.
"I just feel like the students need projects," said Schmitt, who leads the welding program at Tri Star. "They need hands-on learning, and they need to do something that they're not just going to show me and then throw in the scrap-bin. So I like for them to do projects. And what better use of these things than to give it to our public spaces? Things that everybody has access to are really what we kind of try to strive for."
The works also showcases what Tri Star students are capable of producing.
"I think it's advertisement for Tri Star. These latest ones that we've done, we've started including our logo into them," he told the newspaper. "I want the kids to see the Tri Star name and think, 'Maybe I want to go check out Tri Star when I get older.'"
Tri Star Career Compact welding program students designed and manufactured bicycle racks for Celina's Bryson Park District.
The whole concept informally kicked off a few years back when Tri Star welding students created three bent-steel tubing, fish-shaped bicycle racks for the City of Celina that made quite the splash with the public.
One is located near the hot water hole and another near Pullman Bay in the Bryson Park District along Lake Shore Drive, said Schmitt, who is in his sixth year of teaching welding at Tri Star.
"When I had first took over, the welding program had already built a fish bike rack that's out near the hot water hole," he said. "And it was kind of presented to me that they needed another rack."
Tri Star Career Compact welding program students designed and manufactured a bicycle rack for the St. Henry Branch Library.
Schmitt then agreed to make bicycle racks for the St. Henry Branch Library and a baseball diamond in St. Henry, then another for Grand Lake St. Marys State Park.
"It just kind of caught on that we wanted to keep doing this," he said. "I like doing community service projects, and what better place to give back than the nine school districts that come to Tri Star? And we just kind of kept rolling with it."
The Tri Star students have since switched over to using mild steel to build the bicycle racks.
"We have a CNC plasma cutter, so it really kind of opens up a lot capabilities as far as design work," Schmitt explained.
This year, Schmitt set his sights on creating bicycle racks for Four Seasons Park in Minster.
"Both my sons play baseball, and the bike rack they had there, I didn't love. We try to ride our bikes as much as possible, and it just didn't really hold our bikes up," he said. "They would fall, and it was just kind of awkward. So I thought, 'That'd be perfect because they need one there anyway.'"
The Minster Youth Baseball Softball Organization picked up three-quarters of the expenses for creating two bicycle racks, and a Tri Star student-run organization covered the rest, Schmidt said.
Tri Star Career Compact welding program students designed and manufactured a bicycle rack for Minster's Four Seasons Park.
"They did a nice little dedication on opening day, just kind of announced Tri Star made it," Schmitt noted. "The Minster Youth Baseball Softball Organization gave us a shoutout on Facebook, and reading through the comments of the community members saying how awesome it looked, it really makes me proud."
Even though the actual welding is completed by a few students, most of Schmitt's class participates in the project.
"I would say to some extent, everybody's engaged in either the creative process or coming up with what we're doing," he said.
The process involves design work, material prep, fabrication and welding.
"Some of the design work is a big, big thing. It takes a lot of time," Schmitt said. "I have a plasma CNC cutter, so I teach a little of CAD/CAM to the students junior year now. So they get to draw parts on the computer, and the latest bike racks that we've done, that's what we've been using."
The students complete all aspects of the design and manufacturing except for painting. Schmitt said the class has relied on local businesses to complete that final step the last few years.
Most of the work is undertaken during downtime or during the latter part of the school year.
"We have free time at the end of the year. Students take advantage of a program called work-based learning. Midway through their senior year they have the ability to go to their job if it's related to welding," Schmitt said. "The students that don't participate in that, I like to give them projects."
Looking ahead, Schmitt said the project will now become a formal part of this class and may encompass the design and manufacture of other pieces of equipment, such as fire rings and sports equipment storage features.
"We'll evaluate what towns we have left and then try to evaluate funding and do it like a class project, try to have them kind of lay it out, pitch who needs it, how we're going to raise money or (how) it's going to be donated," he said.
Schmitt said he'll seek solicitations from community members, park management officials, or anyone else with a vested interest in improving or creating public access spaces. He'd also be receptive to donations, whether monetary, material or service-oriented, such as powder coating.
Those interested can email Schmitt at aaron.schmitt@tristarcc.org.
