Bayside Secondary School places first in Canada-wide Forged by Youth Award
December 20, 2022—Bayside Secondary School (BSS) earned first place and has been awarded $15,000 in the 2021-2022 CWB Welding Foundation Forged by Youth Class Welding Project Award.
The CWB Welding Foundation is a registered charity that supports the Canadian welding industry by raising awareness and delivering programs to address the welding skilled trade shortage in Canada.
"The Forged by Youth award is open to all secondary schools across Canada and was created to celebrate and highlight the innovative projects that educators have used to teach welding and other technical skills to secondary school students," said Susan Crowley, Executive Director, CWB Welding Foundation. “The submission from Bayside and the students' work to complete the E-kart are impressive; and required mastering multiple skill sets.”
The award-winning BSS project was an Electric Go Kart, or E-Kart, designed and manufactured by the 2021-2022 Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) manufacturing class. The goal was to design and manufacture as many of the components as possible within the BSS facility through the processes taught in manufacturing, including welding, machining, additive manufacturing (3D printing), CAD, CAM, and more. Everything on the E-Kart, except fasteners, bearings, chain, and drill, were manufactured by students in their classroom. As evidenced in the Test Flight video, the result was a kart that was fun to drive and environmentally conscious, since the E-Kart can be charged by the sun through solar panels.
Michael Burns, BSS welding teacher, shared the following about his award submission, “I think it is really important that the Canadian Welding Bureau is honoring the efforts of students across the country with the Forged by Youth award, and to win the top prize for this award is an incredible milestone for Bayside Manufacturing. We have a lot of fun in this program and students learn a lot of valuable skills, but when industry connects with the students in these programs, that's when students see the continuity from education to career.”
The Making Of video illustrates how students actively participated in the project by contributing to concept discussions and design ideas, manufacturing components, design verification and evaluating performance, as well as repairs and reworking. Community partners also supported the project, with Home Depot offering 50 percent off the drills used, and GT Machining in Napanee donating the plastic for the wheels.
Reflecting on what the award meant to him, welding student Marshal Tebworth offered, “This has been an incredible experience, and it’s amazing to think that the skills we learned in manufacturing class and the project we built will help give even better tools and resources to the next class. It's part of the legacy of the 2021-2022 SHSM Manufacturing students.”