Welding class project ideas

[66ford]

After working as a welder/fabricator for 36 years, I took a job as a welding instructor at a school of technology for High School students. I was their 3rd teacher and to say they were/are a discipline problem is a under statement. but after 2 months of teaching I'm a little light, I have to face the fact that they all aren't going to be welders and some are just there to keep from going to their home school, and just plain lazy. But I also have a group that are hard workers and always caught up on their shop assignments, lately we have had a few projects show to repair, which they love to do. What I'm looking for are some ideas that they can make some simple cool stuff that will hold their attention, relatively cheap to build. We have a few shop tools, a small horizontal band saw, I put in for a new FMB saw, a scotchman iron worker, and a old Bridgeport mill, which I just got going again. The county gives a nice budget to work with, the school opened up last year, all new Miller machines with 22a feeders, a half a dozen or so synchrowaves. Its a shame these guys want to squander a great opportunity to learn a great trade. Just looking for something besides practicing to try and peak their interests. Thanks.
Charlie

[Bls repair]

Grill,coat rack,tool box,horse shoe art,tools.

[aapossien]

Decades ago I learned to weld in Vo-Ag class and it was boring, the first year. We mainly did the typical beads, up, down, horizontal etc. The second year a new teacher was very serious. We actually built a new shop for the Vo-Ag, Eight horse corrals out out of 2 in pipe, iron railing for the local cemetery, and many Ag implements. I am sure the area in Md. probably isn't into the same thing.

I had a shop in Tucson, AZ for a number of years and the last two years I was inundated with teens wanting things done to their cars. Welding bungs into stainless exhaust, flanges, modifying intercoolers, and other performance stuff. I was surprised at how much money these kids had to put into their cars. Mostly TIG and MIG on stainless, aluminum and chrome molly. Some actually hung around to learn. Some could care less and just wanted their parts fabricated.

Maybe something useful to them, ask them what they would like to build. In high school our teacher divided us into groups with the best welders in charge (wasn't me) for the different projects. I liked that a lot because I learned as much or more from the other kids as our teacher and there was some competition. We did a lot for the school itself and worked with other classes to help them make science projects and things other kids wanted. Today's world: Maybe solar cars, frames for drones, ATV and MC add ons, who knows.

[El Greco]

Branding irons, good for any welding process.

For tig this is a good one.

http://m.lincolnelectric.com/en-us/s...ne-detail.aspx

[DieselDon16]

I'm a graduate of a Vocational School where I split my day, 1/3 a day at Home school and 2/3 at Vo-Tech. Very few kids from my highschool went to Trade School. The Vo-Tech was the home of 5 combining school districts. Kinda the nucleus that brought like minded kids together... The good and the not so good... Welding was a 3 year program (now a 4 year). With a Co-Op program your senior year if 110 of 125 welding projects were completed and if the jobs were there...

Phenomenal program if you took true advantage of the skills and education being basically handed to you... I remember a group of "idiots" that like stated ^^ were there just to get out of home school... My teacher being a pressure vessel welder and Navy veteran and also a student of this exact class years before and knew how the class worked so to say... I remember a few students making "marijuana pipes" out of galvanized pipe.... They got gone....


Now on the board of the welding program and NOCTI Proctor the last 9 years I truly love this program and it's value. The instructor/teacher treats it more as a shop than a classroom, which I see as invaluable. Real shop ethics...


When I was a student we built projects for other classes, trailers for other teachers personal use, jack stands, always upgrading the shop with home made fab tables, Steel racks, hard surfacing buckets and replacing cutting edges on buckets/blades for contractors, re-building dump bodies on school district trucks...

Basically supplying a service for cost(s). (I know there's some clause with child labor laws regarding turning the educational welding shop into a job shop...).

And not for nothin.... In that school the Welders were the cats "butt" of the trades, we had a teacher that ruled with an iron fist and would have his students back but would chew you out if need be. Graduation day we stood tall in our black suits. (only class to wear suits). I learned as much about welding in those years as I did about life and dealing with jobs and people.


Reach out to the district and see what skills can be provided by the welding program. Handrails out front of the school, storm grates, fabrication, installation, services....




Basically what I'm getting at from a Welding graduates point of view and a huge supporter of the Trade schools is making belt buckles and coat racks are great but most guys (like me) will take there school experience and enter right into the work force... Service jobs, fabricating, print reading, welding symbols and weld repair In my opinion are what the serious students want to learn... Welding is the easy part, real world applications and scenarios aren't taught in school and I know this is just the first stepping stone to a welding career but what a stepping stone it could be...

[PDXsparky]

A couple of things we made in high school welding class were jack stands and hand trucks.

[BD1]

Maybe checkout the horseshoe post. Snowmen are easy or even a horseshoe Christmas tree.

[66ford]

Thanks for the replies, I also am a graduate of a vo tech, really the only teacher I remember was my welding teacher, good teacher, not your buddy, but fair and made you learn from your mistakes. The same here 5 high schools come to this school, they like when I interject the real world stuff. I know it can get boring doing beads, but it has to be done. But they do absolutely need practical work too. I'm surprised how much stuff they don't know, like subtracting fractions. Something they should know since 5th grade. I keep trying to pound it in their head, we, as welders use math, geometry everyday. These guys graduate in January then I get my first set of juniors. They will be technically be my 1st class, I inherited a mess, they got away with a lot of things. They were never graded on shop performance, which is following instructions, safety and staying on task. they would get a grade every now and then on actual welds. but screwing around for 4 days a week and doing nothing was never recognized with a grade. Now they think its a prison..lol. I told them, find a place to work where you work 1 day week, not wear you ppe, destroy shop tools. You'll be gone quick. They have a big life change coming June. This program is only 2 semesters, So theres a lot to learn in a year, I had 5 semesters. I'm looking for ideas for my future class to keep them interested. Sorry for the vent. I love teaching my subject and really want to, literally pass the torch on. Thanks.
Charlie

[97ZJ]

I'll throw in another vote for bringing in little projects from the real world.

When I was in school to become a computer geek, I learned more from the night class profs that ran their own IT companies during the day, and would log into a customer's site and show us what they were talking about. It was live, in the real world. Way better than anything a text book and power point slides could ever show us. They would occasionally even show us why the text book was wrong, because the text book ideal situations sometimes can't exist in the real world. That was a great lesson to learn as well.

Some ideas for small project builds: a shop stool, jack stands, car ramps for doing oil changes, adjustable height tripod stands, tongue tool/storage box for trailers, design and build a cart for their welders in the classroom integrating features they might find useful. All those would be good projects to see why you do things the way you do, like good fit-up, or ensuring good penetration.

[moparman68]

I teach 3 sections of welding in a rural school about 30 min. from a major city, I have the same issues you speak of. I bring in speakers and these kids are all ears when a guy tells them that he is making 50K+ a year and loves it. They will also tell the kids how important practicing is and even though it seems tedious it is how you get better. The following week I usually see a lot more work from the kids but that falls off quickly. I have had the kids make everything from bbq grills to horseshoe art and it never is the same, some like it and some hate it.
One year I gave them the opportunity to make whatever they wanted and much like I had thought, those kids that are self motivated took advantage of that and built some pretty cool things, but the majority had no clue what they wanted to do, maybe too much opportunity at a young age. I always encourage kids to build something they NEED or that will help others with something. I was so discouraged, but I have spoke with my family members and retired welding teachers and it is the same no matter where you are; you will always have kids that welding is just not there thing. The biggest thing is to get them to buy into it and own it.

[Dee_veloper]

go carts

[DieselDon16]

We also had a shop uniform we had to wear everyday. Black collared shirt and black jeans with steel toe boots. Everyday as we all were standing around waiting to leave our instructor would grade our time sheets (We punched in everyday and punched out, had to write down on that given day what process, position and project were were doing) and the instructor gave us a total of 5 points. If you didnt wear your uniform or part of your uniform you lost 1 point making that day a 4 or if you messed around and didnt do anything useful you lost another point or if you cursed you lost another point... at the end of the week he added up your score for the week and 25 points for 5 days was perfect (which wasnt hard to achieve) or added up what ever infractions you had and that score at the end of the semester affected your overall grade.

Every week we also had a shop foreman, (different student every week) He assigned jobs or did them himself but ultimately he was responsible for opening and shutting off the bottles, turning the fan system on/off, making sure everyone cleaned up there booth, every breaker was flipped off before they left... He also had the power to dock a point for not wearing a uniform or whatever he saw a particular student doing or not doing that day...

Oh yeah and we made a smoker and at the end of the year we had our annual Welding Shop Party.


Like I said its your shop and class, I am in no way telling what to do, Im just reliving memories...

[66ford]

I Love the feedback, they have to wear a uniform here too. Thanks moparman, sounds like the same kind of stuff. We had a president of a huge construction company come in, gave them a good lecture, about showing up, ready to work, drug free work place etc. they had a open house for them to apply, 3 went 2 got hired. I've seen a definite increase in work from those guys. They're not all bad, going to miss a few. I'm learning a lot myself being a educator and the pc crap that goes with it. It's a great job, great money and benefits and the program is well backed financially. Not to mention a 190 day a year job. We teach NCCER curriculum I've some flaws with it too. They have been doing some bend tests, I'm loving the competition going on now. This is pretty rural area, their interests are 4 wheelers, dirt bikes, diesel trucks. Thanks for the ideas and feedback.

[storeman]

I'm a graduate of a Vocational School where I split my day, 1/3 a day at Home school and 2/3 at Vo-Tech. Very few kids from my highschool went to Trade School. The Vo-Tech was the home of 5 combining school districts. Kinda the nucleus that brought like minded kids together... The good and the not so good... Welding was a 3 year program (now a 4 year). With a Co-Op program your senior year if 110 of 125 welding projects were completed and if the jobs were there...

Phenomenal program if you took true advantage of the skills and education being basically handed to you... I remember a group of "idiots" that like stated ^^ were there just to get out of home school... My teacher being a pressure vessel welder and Navy veteran and also a student of this exact class years before and knew how the class worked so to say... I remember a few students making "marijuana pipes" out of galvanized pipe.... They got gone....


Now on the board of the welding program and NOCTI Proctor the last 9 years I truly love this program and it's value. The instructor/teacher treats it more as a shop than a classroom, which I see as invaluable. Real shop ethics...


When I was a student we built projects for other classes, trailers for other teachers personal use, jack stands, always upgrading the shop with home made fab tables, Steel racks, hard surfacing buckets and replacing cutting edges on buckets/blades for contractors, re-building dump bodies on school district trucks...

Basically supplying a service for cost(s). (I know there's some clause with child labor laws regarding turning the educational welding shop into a job shop...).

And not for nothin.... In that school the Welders were the cats "butt" of the trades, we had a teacher that ruled with an iron fist and would have his students back but would chew you out if need be. Graduation day we stood tall in our black suits. (only class to wear suits). I learned as much about welding in those years as I did about life and dealing with jobs and people.


Reach out to the district and see what skills can be provided by the welding program. Handrails out front of the school, storm grates, fabrication, installation, services....




Basically what I'm getting at from a Welding graduates point of view and a huge supporter of the Trade schools is making belt buckles and coat racks are great but most guys (like me) will take there school experience and enter right into the work force... Service jobs, fabricating, print reading, welding symbols and weld repair In my opinion are what the serious students want to learn... Welding is the easy part, real world applications and scenarios aren't taught in school and I know this is just the first stepping stone to a welding career but what a stepping stone it could be...

Excellent post.
Jerry

[Oldendum]

Charlie, my younger son took most of the welding classes at the local community college, then went on to do the machining classes. He got a job TIG welding at a major international company, repairing turbine blades, before he finished the TIG class. Just days before his teacher retired, I went down to talk with that guy. We (or he ) chatted for about 3 hours. Said my kid was one of the best he'd ever seen. Great problem solver and very technical. But there was another screw up kid who stood out. The guy could just plain weld. Apparently even his family thought he was worthless, but the guy had some sort of Zen thing going, and welding (stick?) was it. I so hope that kid succeeded with his natural talent. Teaching is frustrating, but there are sometimes rewards when you break through and save a life.

My son is now a pretty skilled machinist who can cut parts to tolerance, program in machine code and get things done. Still likes welding, but not doing repetitive stuff. O/A, TIG and stick are his favorites. MIG not so much.

[Ruark]

A couple of things we made in high school welding class were jack stands and hand trucks.

Urrrmmm.... I'd be a little antsy about crawling under a car supported by a jack stand made by some high school kid.

As far as your student attitudes... I was a school teacher for 10 years, and of course you see all kinds. Some don't give a flip, they're just there because whatever. The attitude in adult schools (community colleges, etc.) is TOTALLY different. They're there because they want to be, because they want to learn it.