High-Flying Consultants

Posted on: February 6, 2019

Flight Academy students sit around a conference table at WeldalI Manufacturing on Oct. 30 as programming engineer Ben Matthies talks about the processes the company uses to ensure consistent and accurate production of welded parts.

By Arthur Thomas – Freeman Staff

Students at the Homing Middle School Flight Academy had a chance to hone their presentation skills on Wednesday as they gave representatives from Weldall Manufacturing ideas for how the company could incorporate iPads into daily operations.

Students from the Flight Academy, a multiage program in its inaugural year that provides a personalized learning pathway focused on collaboration, integrating technology and 21st century skills, spent the day at Weldall on Oct. 30 learning about the company’s operations. Since then, they have been developing presentations and representatives from the company came to Homing on Wednesday to see what they had come up with.

The ideas students brought to Weldall representatives included using Facetime or iMessenger to communicate on the shop floor, using lime Station to clock in and out of jobs, take photos of welds to improve quality moving forward, take notes electronically and limit the use of paper.

Flight Academy Advisor Jeffrey Allen said the goal was to integrate content standards for science and literacy and – more importantly – develop 21st century skills.

Weldall programming engineer Ben Matthies, Jeff, explains a laser measurement tool to Flight Academy students during a visit to the factory on Oct. 30. 

When the project started, Allen said, the objective was to provide Weldall with something they could use and the company expressed a desire to employ iPads in their daily operations.

“Our kids kind of took that and went with it,” he said.

Weldall Human Resources Manager Jenni Zielke said the company will likely mow forward with using iPads in some way. The students’ suggestions to use apps to improve communications, including using photos to document welding errors or jobs well done, were the ones that stood out for Zielke.

“Photos can communicate so quickly,” she said, adding that using messaging apps to keep everyone on the same page in real time held potential too.

Colin Nuoffer, standing at center, and Jacob Pilon, along with Alex Kaminski, seated at left, present a project on potential uses of iPads by Weldall Manufacturing at the Flight Academy Wednesday.

After this project, the company would be interested in collaborating with the Waukesha schools again, Zielke said.

Waukesha School Board member Bill Baumgart was on hand for the field trip and also for the students’ presentations Wednesday. He said he was impressed with the students’ engagement in the project on both days.

Baumgart that the level of knowledge students displayed about how the iPads worked and how they applied it to an industry they were not familiar with at the beginning of the school year was “pretty impressive.”

Photo credits: Charles Auer/Freeman Staff