On September 17 & 18, the Auglaize County ESC sponsored the first Mission Discovery event. The purpose of the event was to allow students in grades 8 through 12 to have hands-on career exploration experiences. Representatives from various industries participated in this event. WCOMP partners Honda, Crown, Apollo Career Center, Rhodes State College, and Wright State University-Lake Campus along with the WCOMP Display were at the event.
Over the Two days, 1,000 students from Auglaize County Schools in Wapakoneta, St. Marys, New Bremen, Minster, Waynesfield, The Home School Association, the ACE Academy, and Auglaize County Board of Developmental Disabilities participated in the event.
The WCOMP partners allowed the students to use welding simulators, laser engravers, and robots as well as working on a process assembly simulation building a small robot puzzles. The WCOMP display’s robot sat next to Honda’s larger programmed robot allowing students to observe a robot moving blocks and experience actually controlling a robot with the WCOMP Dobot. The most popular task in the WCOMP display was the laser engraved, personalized keychains Over 300 students got to engrave their own keychains. The most interesting part of having the students use the engravers was their willingness to instruct each other. in the safe use of the machines. When a group arrived, once one or two students were trained and asked to train others, they quickly stepped up and led the way.
Although the WCOMP display could not compare to our Honda partner’s $150,000 sports car display or Crown’s robotic candy give away, the student’s seemed to enjoy the activities and we even had some good discussions about manufacturing jobs and how to get into making things.
