Students taking the Civil Construction Class with Mr. Travis Minix at Oregon-Davis High School have recently had a series of unique experiences: Getting to test drive construction equipment in what is being called an ‘Extreme Sandbox’.
Oregon-Davis School Board Vice President Lee Nagai has partnered with South Bend-based West Side Tractor Sales to create this experience for future workers. Nagai provides the land, West Side Tractor Sales provides the equipment, and Oregon-Davis Students get hands-on experience operating machinery in a controlled environment.
Nagai mentioned that this is an opportunity for kids to maybe go and explore something they wouldn’t normally get a chance to do.
One of these ‘Extreme Sandbox’ outings happened last Thursday with a mini excavator, and WKVI was able to see the sandbox in action.
Oregon-Davis 11th-grader Meena Schiller said that driving the equipment was pretty fun, and kind of difficult to control. Meena noted that when she had had the opportunity to try driving a skidster, she had asked if any other schools around them were doing similar things and was told they aren’t. Meena hopes to later go into carpentry; stating that people working in carpentry often use the skidster, mini excavator, and other machines.
Senior Brock Garrison was also on-site last Friday, and he said the best part about driving the mini excavator was getting to move dirt around. He talked about some things he learned before getting ‘behind the wheel’, so to speak, stating that learning how to combine controls to move the big shovel is important, since there is a lot of combining work in digging dirt properly. Garrison hopes to go to work on the railroads after graduation.
Both Minix and Nagai hope to see more equipment brought out for students to drive in the future; noting that the ultimate goal was for kids to come out of high school with enough skills to be able to enter apprenticeship or work training programs for a seamless transition from high school to the work force.
