Los Gatos Weekly-Times

The automated manufacturing team (from left) Brian Parker, Andrea Palestro and Cory Sandusky walked away with gold and will be headed for the national finals this summer.

LGHS students win big in industrial-arts Olympics

By John Pancharian

Some of the best computer-design and -manufacturing students in the state study right here at Los Gatos High School. Local industrial arts students came home loaded down with medals after the recent Vocational Industrial Clubs of America State Skills Olympics in Fresno.

Andy Swing, a LGHS sophomore, managed to win a silver medal in electronics technology working entirely on his own, as LGHS does not offer electronics technology classes.

"I've been into it my whole life," Swing said. "My dad's an electronics engineer. One of my first words was 'on.' " He said he has always been a tinkerer, creating problems for himself to solve by pulling household items apart to grasp their inner workings.

The competition Swing participated in consisted of a written test and eight workstations where students endeavored to solve various problems presented to them there. The final station challenged students to build a sound-activated robot from a kit and instructions. The finished product was to move forward on wheels using a small electric motor, then stop and change directions when it heard a hand clap.

The members of the automated-manufacturing team--Cory Sandusky, Brian Parker and Andrea Palestro--took home a state gold medal and may now continue on to the June national championships in Kansas City.

Their competition required that they take a rough sketch of a fictitious machine part called a "tensioning bracket" and turn it into a real model that could be used to mass-produce the part. This is a three-step process. "First," industrial arts teacher Ron Cassel explained, "the drafter has to go through the drawing and make sure the conditions specified in the drawing can be met." Next, a second student must translate the plans created by the drafter into a tool path, a set of instructions for the machine that will create the part. Lastly, the machinist must actually operate the machine that cuts the part out according to the tool path.

"It's the most difficult part we've had to make in the competition," machinist Palestro said.

Other winners include Sonny Siemiller, who won a bronze medal in precision machining; Nick Cisowski, Eric Goldman and Dan Benedetti, who won the bronze medal in automated manufacturing; and Conor Regan, Eric Goldman, Josh Smith, Jenny Alberts and Doug Thorburn, who won the gold medal in the VICA quiz bowl.

[ Back to Contents Page | Los Gatos Weekly-Times Home Page | Archives ]