As students and their families paced the upper lobby of the Doug Dorris Jr. Performing Arts Center at White Hall High School on Tuesday, a 3D printer was working hard to create a clothing hook for a locker room.
Sophomores Braden Drye and Alex Swartz stood by to display the creation, one of the attractions in the White Hall School District’s EAST Night Out.
“We can print, depending on the size, two to four objects per print, and it can take anywhere from two to 12 hours per print,” Drye said. “We both have 3D printers at our house, so that helped a lot. Last year, it took two weeks to a month to learn how to use this one.”
Creativity was certainly on display, but EAST Night Out gave students in the Environmental and Spatial Technology program a chance to explain how their projects can also serve the greater good.
Junior Jacob Evans’ favorite project is creating a virtual tour of the high school campus for newcomers. “It lets people see how the campus is laid out and how they can find their classes before they physically walk into the building,” he said.
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Freshman Ethan Long found the tour useful.
“For my first day here, it was very difficult to find classes and it would be easier if we could see where they are,” he said.
The catch for each student Tuesday night was to promote a project that was not their own. EAST facilitator Dalton McGathy developed the strategy as part of a competition to determine his team of eight students to participate in an EAST Conference March 17-20 in Hot Springs. About 275 teams from Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma will take part, he estimated.
“The biggest thing I want (visitors) to take away from the EAST Night Out is that we don’t just do poster-making,” McGathy said. “There is a wide variety of things that we offer. We don’t just shoot videos for the football team. We have people making a virtual yearbook. We have people working with a national toxicology company. We’re working with multiple elementary schools to try to get EAST at our elementary here so, that way, kids can get started in our program and get started in service at a young age.”
McGathy hopes an EAST Lab can be installed in each of the district’s four elementary schools.
Meanwhile, middle schoolers can get an early start on EAST education. They set up their own demonstrations on the lower floor of the recently opened Performance Arts Center.
Seventh-grader Eva Ridder stood near another 3D printer creating a Bulldog logo from spools of polylactic acid wire. Yet, her focus in EAST is centered on much more than the art of technology.
“I just like helping people and we do so many projects,” Eva said. “We’re planning on having an advanced safety system for our school and having protectors to protect our students from school shootings, natural disasters, things like that.”
The Raptor safety system is a program that must be bought through the district, Eva said, so students plan to present it to their principal upon their return from Christmas break. Eva said she and her classmates are also interested in an Emergency Management System that includes sensors and will scan ID cards of those who want to check out a child from school.
“I like being involved in service projects because I can see how it helps people, and I like telling people about it because they’re very interested in it and learning about the technology we use,” she said.
Freshman Ethan Long and junior Jacob Evans were among high school students showcasing White Hall High School’s EAST Lab works at EAST Night Out. (Pine Bluff Commercial/I.C. Murrell)
A 3-D printer is creating a clothing hook for a locker room. (Pine Bluff Commercial/I.C. Murrell)