60 bike stands to be installed in SF thanks to SHS students

Jeff Green | May 31, 2017

The metal shop at Sydenham High School is a pretty busy place throughout the school year, but last week it was more frantic than normal. TV cameras and politicians on hand for a media day mark the final stretch of a project that partners the school, the township, and local business in the production of 60 pairs of bike racks to go up throughout the township. For the shop students, there was more pressing business on their minds than posing for the cameras. They had just received 60 sets of decorative circular metal plates from Martin’s Welding and Fabricating of Inverary to go on the stands and they were busy working out the most efficient way to get them all built in the time remaining before the end of school, keeping in mind they can’t spend all day working to fill the order.

Five of the students who took the lead in both the design of the racks and working out the necessary tooling and processes for making them are ICE (Innovation, Creativity, Entrepreneurship) students who are taking the Fabrication and Manufacturing Specialty at SHS for a specialised certificate when they graduate. They are: Ryan Hyndman, Daniel Van Heyst, Ian Udall, Jason Campbell and Brandon Long. They were using all their training and skills to bend metal tubing into place, cut cross pieces to size, weld them in place, weld the plates on and the tubes onto feet so they can turn them over to South Frontenac Rides.

South Frontenac Rides is a citizen led group that sprung up less than two years ago, and with council support has become a major force in the township, promoting cycling on trails and roads, working with public works on cycle friendly infrastructure and promoting a summer festival. At least some of the stands will be in place for the inaugural Lakes and Trails Festival on July 15th.

Ross Sutherland, council liaison to the committee, and an avid cyclist who rode from house to house when campaigning in 2014, said that this project might be “the best thing that South Frontenac Cycles has been involved in so far because it will leave a permanent mark on the township. They will be in place for a long time, a testament to the students who made them and to the commitment the township has made to being a cycling friendly place.”

Glen McCallum is the shop teacher who oversaw the project.

He can’t say enough about the students, and the partnership that brought the project about.

“As you can see from the way they are working here, there is a lot of problem solving that goes on all the time as they work out how to work together at every stage of this project, and now they are dealing with coming up with a production schedule to get them all finished. It’s just like what they will face on job sites if they continue on in this field,” he said.

The partnership with Martin’s Welding is one that has been ongoing for years.

“We approached them to help because they are local and they offered to produce the designs for free, and they really came through for us. We worked on the rest of the pieces and when the plates came, we were set to do the final assembly.  The students are now under pressure to finish the project off in time, but they’ll make it. They even come in at lunch to work on it. It’s not only the ICE kids who are working on the project, but they are the ones who are really driving it.”

Fabrication and Manufacturing is one of two Specialised High Skills Majors offered at SHS, the other is Performance Power Technology in the automotive department. Of the 25 offered in the board, 5 are offered in Frontenac County High Schools. The other three are Forestry (Granite Ridge), Health and Wellness (Granite Ridge) and Construction (North Addington Education Centre) These programs take place during the final two years of High School and involve extra levels of commitment on the part of the students.