Through the semester-long commercial art class at the middle school, the students learned about planning, building and marketing a product. Then they built wood racks to hold scuba diving tanks.

Those tank racks are now being sold at the Diver Dan's dive shop in Santa Clara for about $20 each. The school gets some of the proceeds. Meanwhile, the students learned about making and marketing a product. The commercial arts class ended with a tour of the dive shop, where the students saw how tanks would fit in their racks.

"I think that we understand the whole picture and why we did this," said eighth-grader Michael Vo, 14. "It's better to make something yourself instead of buying it, and you feel like you accomplished something."

The partnership began with Lindsay Parker and Diver Dan's owner Dan King's long-standing friendship through diving. King is a course director for the Professional Association of Diving Instructors, and he trained Parker on her way to becoming a scuba diving instructor.

"I've known him for a long time, and I knew that he had always done woodworking as a hobby," Parker said.

King built many of the wood structures in the dive shop, including tank holders, shelves, cabinets and display cases. He gave the class plans he had for simple tank holders.

The tank racks also gave Parker a chance to blend her past experiences with diving instruction and aquarium work with her new job as a Sunnyvale Middle School teacher.

"I'm always trying to work the connection between the ocean and students," Parker said.

The project cost about $120, and King provided all the lumber for the students. He even came to their class to help them build the racks and discuss the niche in the market they would serve.

The racks are a simple wooden rectangle with a center beam. The tanks lie on either side of the center beam; each rack can hold two.

"This product is something that has been missing in diving and can be marketed," King said. "It is my hope that this will be an ongoing project with Miss Parker and Sunnyvale Middle School."

Parker sees a need for the racks because there are few sturdy tank holders to fit in the back of cars. Two commonly available racks are an inexpensive set of foam brackets and an upright metal cage. The foam pieces can be lost easily, and the metal racks don't work for divers who need to lay tanks horizontal in the back of cars or trucks.

Parker showed students the other types of racks and discussed the pros and cons of each design. They also discussed what made their product superior to existing models.

"I think it really put things into context for the students. They had someone come in and talk to them about his business and how they were going to become business partners," Parker said.

With the success of the first run--this is Parker's first year teaching at the middle school--she and King both said they want to continue working together with students.