For a long time, Mike Stitzer, technology education teacher at Garden Spot High School (GSHS), has hoped to purchase an automated screen-printing press for students to learn to operate. "This piece of equipment was something I had been trying to get for many years, but it was fiscally impossible," said Stitzer, who noted that instead students have used a manual press, which prints one shirt at a time working with ink the consistency of peanut butter. "It's draining on your arms," said Stitzer.
By July 2022, Stitzer hopes to have a new automated press in place in the classroom, thanks to a $25,000 grant from Case New Holland (CNH). Joseph Steinmacher, GSHS technology and engineering teacher, said that the CNH Foundation gives a yearly educational grant to area schools, but that schools that receive it must wait a year before applying again. "A couple years back, they accepted our proposal for a laser cutter for our STEM lab," said Steinmacher, who said that in the fall of 2021, the department looked at its equipment wish list with an eye to items that might be too expensive for the regular budget. The grant was approved in the fall and awarded on Feb. 28. Garden Spot School District will cover the difference between the grant and the cost of the press.
The new press will do a lot more for GSHS students than easing the load on their arms. "One of our strengths is tying what we have here with industry," said Stitzer. "We have new (career) pathways that we will be adopting, and a lot of them are for automation." Stitzer added that the new press will allow him to teach maintenance and operation of automated systems and computer programming of this type of equipment. "It was the way to make (this technology) accessible to students," he said. "This will give students the ability to (run this piece of equipment) in industry, (so they) could go out without further education and run one of these." In addition, Stitzer pointed out that students who have physical limitations will be able to run the press themselves, rather than having a partner print the end result.
Steinmacher noted that the purchase ties in with both CNH's goals for workers and GSHS' hopes for students. "When we applied for this grant a couple years ago, CNH made it clear that one of their focuses is advanced manufacturing," he said. "They need more individuals from the area who are trained in advanced manufacturing skills ... and students learning computer programs from automated equipment like this. Even if CNH isn't using (this exact technology), the idea is that the students are gaining these skillsets."
In doing research for the grant, Stitzer found that Conestoga Valley High School (CVHS) had already purchased an automated press. "That gave me hard numbers on how they used it," he said, noting that CVHS had printed 80,000 shirts, which were sold at an 80% markup. "It's a very lucrative way of making a living in the real world and a savings to the district," he said. "We can do 450 shirts per hour versus 40 with the manual press," he noted, adding that a design will have 100% repeatability when human error is removed from the equation.
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