A partnership between the Adrian High School, Joens Woodworking, Veld Lumber, and Kruse Welding has received a $15,000. LYFT Career Pathways Innovation award that will provide industrial technology classes with updated modern technology to meet the demands of a future workforce. Students will be able to engage in hand-on learning to learn functional skills in these courses, by investing in a portable CNC machine (shaper) and welding simulators.

Updating current Computer Aided Design (CAD) program to a more user friendly and widely used program in the industry will give students skills for future employment. Our business partners have agreed to demonstrate and guide important techniques that they are using in their current work settings to connect it to real-life experience.

• Learning to program and operate a modern and portable CNC Machine to create a variety of projects.
• Simulated welding activities.
• Create basic and advanced Computer Aided Designs of small- and large-scale projects.

The goal for the wood portion of the project is to incorporate modern technology that a potential employer could work with in an employee or intern to mold them into a long-term asset for their company. The goal for the metals portion of the project is to incorporate this modern technology to not only educate and train the workforce for demanding work in today’s world, but to also help to reduce the costs of materials needed for training these students for this trade.

For more information contact Cate Koehne at Adrian Public Schools.