Students listen to a representative from Endress+Hauser talk about manufacturing during the Community Career Education Forum at Endress+Hauser in Greenwood on Thursday. The forum was a chance for seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders to learn about careers in STEM, as well as see demonstrations of robotics, 3-D printing and more technology.
RYAN TRARES | DAILY JOURNAL
The scene seemed to have sprung from some imaginative science fiction.
Students and their parents watched as 3-D printers conjured geometric vases, spacemen and LEGO figurines from seemingly thin air. Robots zoomed around obstacle courses and picked up blocks. Mini tornadoes whirled in a canister. People could have their heights measured by a machine using nothing but waves.
But the activities going on inside Endress+Hauser’s Greenwood facility on Thursday night weren’t a vision of some far-off future — it was the realities of technology today.
Hundreds of area seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders spent the night diving into the wonders of STEM during the annual Community Career Education Forum at Endress+Hauser. They met with local manufacturers about career opportunities, learned about degree programs at local colleges and took part in hands-on demonstrations of robotics, 3-D printing and cutting-edge diesel engines.
Students, as well as parents, counselors and educators from area schools, toured Endress+Hauser’s production center to see how STEM comes in handy in real-world situations. They tested their knowledge of flow, pressure and other measurements on Endress+Hauser’s Process Training Unit, a two-story apparatus where employees train for their jobs.
“I like doing math, so this is a lot of fun,” said Sailor Starling, a home-schooled sixth-grader from Indianapolis.
For the Endress+Hauser team, seeing so many people back in their facility engaged with science and technology has made for an exciting night.
“It’s very heartwarming to feel like we’re back to a normal state. To see the excitement of our community partners is pretty powerful,” said Nicole Otte, director of workplace development at Endress+Hauser.
Community Career Education Forum was designed to showcase the wide range of potential careers, education and recreation revolving around STEM. The event was established in 2014 as a way to help schools, students and their families learn what skills employers are looking for in their workers, as well as see the diverse types of careers available in advanced manufacturing.
Endress+Hauser partnered with Central Nine Career Center and Aspire Johnson County to create the career forum, which has grown into a key way to foster interest in science and technology in the county.
During Thursday’s event, businesses, schools and organizations set up engaging booths for students and their parents to see STEM in action, and learn more about jobs associated with it.
“We’re creating future opportunities for our students and our community — for them to explore careers they might not have known existed,” Otte said. “It also creates the community among the business partners, the educators and the community partners, saying ‘We’re all in this together.’”
Kids could see LEGO replicas of Cummins engines in action, watch demonstrations of how the bearings NSK makes work, and play with robots available to use at the Greenwood Public Library.
Students and their parents stopped at booths set up by numerous schools, such as Franklin College and Purdue Polytechnic Columbus, to talk about engineering programs and other STEM tracks.
Moira Donahue had come back to the event this year after taking part in 2022. The sixth-grader, whose mother, Monica, works in trade compliance at Endress+Hauser, was intrigued by the different technologies on display during the forum.
“It was a lot of fun. Also, I need to convince (my mom) to buy a 3-D printer, and this seemed like a great opportunity,” she said.
Moira liked touring the place where her mother works and taking part in the forum activities together.
“It’s interesting we get to learn about what she does for work,” she said.
This was also Sailor’s second year at the Community Career Education Forum. On Thursday, she was at a table hosted by Girls Scouts of Central Indiana, where she constructed a solar-powered bug.
She had come last year to satisfy her love of science and came away with an eye-opening look at the different possibilities in the STEM world.
“Plus, I got to take home a dancing robot,” she said.
Activities were spread throughout the Endress+Hauser campus. Robotics teams from schools throughout Johnson County and the southside of Indianapolis came to show off their creations, as well as give students an idea of what their organizations do.
People could program a robot to draw squares and triangles, or play a game of checkers. A welding simulator let students experience what it was like to do industrial welding. Participants could also play Are You Smarter than an Engineer?, testing their STEM knowledge against Endress+Hauser’s team.
Eli Wilson, an eighth-grader at Center Grove Middle School Central, was in the middle of completing the PTU Challenge, a favorite at the Community Career Education Forum. He was solving problems similar to what an Endress+Hauser plant engineer or instrument technician would encounter on the company’s simulated process plant.
With an interest in STEM, he decided to sign up for the forum.
“It sounded like it would be fun,” he said. “So far, it’s been good.”
