Supporting the School District of Washington’s STEM Robotics and Automation program, Homeyer Precision Manufacturing in Marthasville made a donation of $1,700 to help the program with the tools and equipment needed to get it started.
The Robotics and Automation program is an expansion of the SDOW’s BUILD Academy (Building Unique and Innovative Learning by Design) in preparing students to be career ready following their education in the SDOW.
BUILD Academy offers an authentic project based learning experience to sixth-grade students in the SDOW. This project based learning model exposes students to possible careers that they may not even knew exist before they enter the BUILD Academy.
Each sixth-grade student will be involved in the STEM class, which will be taught by STEM teachers in each SDOW elementary building.
STEM education, at its core, simply means educating students in four specific disciplines, namely, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
The goal is for Robotics and Automation classes to begin this spring. This opportunity allows all sixth-grade students to participate in the BUILD program through the Project Lead the Way course.
To do that, the program needs several robotics kits. A total of 72 kits are needed to teach all sixth-grade students in the district in the designated time frame. Each kit has a price tag of $425, meaning $30,600 is needed to ideally teach the students.
TOPS Manufacturing in Union already has made a donation of $5,000 to purchase 11 kits, in addition to Homeyer Precision Manufacturing’s donation of $1,700 to purchase four kits. That brings the money needed down to $23,900.
“It’s a lot of money, but we’ll get there,” said SDOW Assistant Superintendent Maranda Anderson. “I am blown away by the kindness and support to the PLTW Robotics course. These incredible donations will be a fantastic start toward securing our robotics kits.”
“We are 100 percent interested in contributing to get the schools the amount of kits needed to make this program successful,” said Gretchen Homeyer, Director of Business Operations for Homeyer Precision Manufacturing. “This is exactly the kind of program our company supports and needs to bring the future workforce into manufacturing and STEM careers.”
Presenting the check to SDOW Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Kephart and Assistant Superintendent Maranda Anderson from Homeyer Precision Manufacturing were Tim Wetzel; President, Gretchen Homeyer; Director of Business Operations, and Justin Homeyer; Director of Sales and Customer Relations.
Homeyer Precision Manufacturing in Marthasville made a donation of $1,700 to support the School District of Washington’s STEM Robotics and Automation program. Pictured from left are Homeyer Precision Manufacturing President Tim Wetzel; School District of Washington Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Kephart, School District of Washington Assistant Superintendent Maranda Anderson, Homeyer Precision Manufacturing Director of Business Operations Gretchen Homeyer, and Homeyer Precision Manufacturing Director of Sales and Customer Relations Justin Homeyer.