The Sierra College CACT, funded by a CCCCO Hub grant, developed a youth hands on, project based module to expose middle and high school students to academic and career pathways in engineering & design, and product development & manufacturing.  The project, Tech-Explorer (www.tech-explorer.com), involves a mobile lab where students use a lathe, mill, drill press, and a variety of hand tools to fabricate a catapult from aluminum.  The project is expandable, from a manual model to one that has an electric release, and an electronic (programmable) release.  

The catapult project developer, a professor emeritus at Sierra College, is also a founder of the Sierra College Mechatronics program - the only program of its kind west of the Rocky Mountains.  During the summer, the Sierra College CACT and Mechatronics faculty train ski lift mechanics and technicians in a series of courses - RoMec I, II, and III.   Training is endorsed and co-sponsored by the California Ski Industry Association.  The catapult project has been adapted and integrated into RoMec training to include skills such as metal cutting & welding, fabrication, and electronics.   Once their catapults are complete, training participants participate in a competition for accuracy and distance.

For more information, contact Steve Hunter at shunter@sierracollege.edu

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