Citizen Staff
A team of four students from Beaver Dam High School won the sculpture junkyard competition at Moraine Park Technical College on Wednesday. The winning team consists of, from left, Blake Hill, Collin Kittleson, Tyler Parson and Kirk Klossner.
A team of four students from Beaver Dam High School won the sculpture junkyard competition held at Moraine Park Technical College on Wednesday.
"They did an outstanding job," BDHS metals instructor Mark Boehmer said. "Both groups from Beaver Dam did well and so did all the rest of the groups. It's a nice event and good for these kids to do this."
This year's theme was mechanical mechanisms, and the competitors were from Beaver Dam, Fond du Lac, Slinger and Waupun high schools.
MPTC instructors Sue Silverstein and Larry Clark designed the challenge and have been doing the competitions for the last five years.
"The junkyard challenge teaches teamwork and working productively within a time limit," Silverstein said.
It also allows the students a chance to use equipment and material that they do not have available at their schools. Possible future employers also have a chance to watch the welding competition and MPTC welding students also work with the high school students on their projects.
"It's also our biggest recruiting effort to get students into the program," Silverstein said.
The winning team included Collin Kittleson, Kirk Klossner, Blake Hill and Tyler Parson.
Kittleson said all the members of the team had input into the project.
"We thought our project would be interesting with all the moving parts," Hill said.
The four did a sample exercise at school before the main event.
"We got a little bit of a feel for what it would be like," Klossner said.
After arriving at the competition, all the teams were able to pick the table of junk that they wanted to work with before beginning the two hour and 45 minute competition.
"It was hard at first to come up with an idea for the structure," Klossner said. "As we got moving, stuff started popping in our heads."
A team of Slinger students came in second.
Members of the Beaver Dam Area Arts Association judged the welding competition.
Jerry Kamps, from the arts association, said that Slinger has proven to come to the competition well prepared and was the winning team last year.
However the shape, weightlessness feel and the movement of the pieces on Beaver Dam's sculpture made them the winning team this year.
Airgas Welding Supply donated a student starter kit for the winning team including a helmet, jacket and gloves. John Deere donated a solar clock for the first and second placing teams and hats for all the students.
In addition to creating sculptures, the students participated in a welding competition using specific welding techniques at their school. MPTC provided blueprints and other criteria for the students to follow. The pieces are brought to MPTC and judged at a later date.