American Crane Welcomes Students for Manufacturing Contest

Recently, a group of middle school students visited American Crane & Equipment Corporation (ACECO) as part of a student video contest called “What’s So Cool About Manufacturing?” The contest is part of a program (created by The Manufacturers Resource Center) called “Dream It Do It PA”. This program was created to introduce students to exciting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics/Manufacturing) career opportunities with local manufacturers.

Last month (November) a group of Daniel Boone Middle School girls came to ACECO with a GoPro camera and a list of questions. The purpose of their visit was to collect information to produce a video that will be entered into the contest.

This group of five students was one of 17 groups representing middle schoolers throughout several local counties. Each group of middle school students was assigned to visit a local manufacturing company where they filmed video and gathered data about the different aspects of manufacturing. The students’ goal was to explain why manufacturing is so cool.

The girls began gathering information for their video with a “divide and conquer” strategy. They assigned each member of their group a different task. Seventh grader Amy was chosen to be the interviewer for the video. After agreeing upon the interview questions, Amy visited several employees at ACECO and asked them about their thoughts on why manufacturing is cool. She interviewed shippers, maintenance managers, engineers, and even the executive vice president of the company. Amy asked these employees questions like, “What is a normal day like for you?” and “What is your favorite part of manufacturing?” All the questions referred to the general theme of the contest which highlights the many career opportunities manufacturing offers.

Seventh grader Sarah followed the group with the GoPro camera as the students toured the facility, meeting many employees along the way. Sarah’s classmate, Melody, set up the microphone for the interviews and was responsible for recording the audio while Sarah filmed the video.

After the footage is compiled, seventh grader Kylie will edit the video clips to make one complete short film. Lastly, the only eighth grader of the group, Mya, played the role of producer and assistant editor for the project.

The group successfully filmed many phases of manufacturing at the ACECO facility and learned a lot about material handling equipment in the process. The girls even had the opportunity to operate two different 50 ton overhead bridge cranes with the supervision of a maintenance technician. The visit to proved to be a very educational experience for this group of middle schoolers. The girls collected content for their video/contest, learned about STEM careers and had fun doing so! After online voting ballots are tallied to choose the best video, the competition ends with an Awards Gala.