The exercise had come down to the last team, and the last throw.
It would be up to Aiken Middle School student Toriec Smith to send his team to victory or defeat. He held the carefully crafted paper airplane above his head and sent it into the air with a toss of his right hand.
A hush came over the gymnasium filled with eighth-grade boys as it appeared that Toriec’s plane might dip too low too fast – but just as it dove toward the floor the paper airplane’s design stopped the descent and instead sailed smoothly beyond all the other competitors.
Toriec was quickly mobbed by his teammates and his classmates roared their approval.
“I was kind of nervous, but I thought it had a chance (to win),” stated Toriec after the celebration. “I had a lot of fun building the airplane. I like airplanes. It felt good to see the plane go so far. I was happy.”
The young man certainly was not the only one pleased with the outcome of the exercise, which tasked teams of students with completing a specific paper airplane design and submitting related reports on engineering and budget costs.
Standing just a short distance away, Mark Elam, director of state and local government relations, and Frank Hatten, education relations specialist, both from Boeing South Carolina, were thrilled with what unfolded before them during Aiken Middle School’s annual Manufacturing Day event, held earlier this year.
“These students are learning about Boeing, and what we do, and particularly about STEM learning because we think that is the future in South Carolina,” Elam commented. “Our goal is to hire local students to work in our facilities and not to have to go out of state to reach skilled workers and if we can light that spark in them to learn then that’s what we want to do.
“In this particular exercise you need teamwork, you need to follow directions, and you need to perform at the end so all of the elements critical to success in any workplace are there,” Elam added. “I have had employers tell us that they can train students, but if those same students also have social skills, don’t do drugs and are willing to learn they are way ahead of so many people.”
Meanwhile, in the school’s cafeteria, and equally important yet altogether different effort was underway thanks to representatives of local diesel engine manufacturer MTU America.
MTU America Team Leader Eric Bellinger, who works at the company’s production facility in Graniteville, watched as female students worked in groups to understand the intricacies and challenges of working on a production line – again, the subject model was paper airplanes.
“It was an exercise that shows how a product would run down the line in a one-piece flow where each station has one job,” Bellinger stated. “It’s just something to help the students to learn about one-piece flow and how to avoid a bottleneck (in production). When things start backing up you are costing the company money because you have lots of product that is just laying around in one spot. The quality control part is just having someone making sure that what you build is exactly what the company wants to produce.”
Bellinger said he came away impressed with the ability of many Aiken Middle School students to quickly adapt and perform when introduced with time restraints and production goals.
“The students did a very good job,” Bellinger stated. “One of the groups made 13 airplanes in their allotted time and the goal was 15 so they did well.”
Motivational speaker and former National Football League player and University of South Carolina and Silver Bluff High School football standout Troy Williamson also addressed students. Williamson encouraged them to grow accustomed to work hard and chase their dreams.