Sawdust Flies at Gateway High School as Students Showcase Their Cabinet-Making Skills
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Pop quiz time. If you want to straighten out a piece of lumber that is warped or twisted, would you use a miter chop saw, a boring machine or a service planer and jointer? If you guessed a service planer and jointer, congratulations! You’re on your way to becoming a cabinet making expert.
Knowing the answers to questions like this was a must for students who competed in the recent SkillsUSA regional competition for cabinet manufacturing. The competition was held at Gateway High School and featured three Gateway students going up against students from the Cherry Creek Innovation Campus and Riverdale Ridge High School in Thornton.
First, the students were given a set of blueprints for a cabinet they needed to make. Then, they inspected a demonstration cabinet in the middle of Gateway’s woodworking shop. Finally, they sawed, glued and crafted multiple pieces of lumber together into a finished cabinet.
Gateway instructor Andrew Woods likened it to his students’ Super Bowl. “How many of the sports teams get to go to a state championship? Well, here we have a chance for students to go to a state championship for cabinet making.”
It’s exciting to see the sawdust fly inside Gateway’s shop. With each cut, the students got closer to achieving their goal of advancing to the state competition. Aurora Public Schools is proud to participate in SkillsUSA, which is a national organization that champions career and technical education (CTE) skills for students.
February is CTE Month and Woods said it’s important for his students to have opportunities to showcase their skills. “I’m always proud to see what our students can do,” he said. “Some of the woodworking programs like this have been lost over the years. We’re really fighting hard to keep them growing strong and producing skilled workers.”
Gateway invited professional industry partners to serve as judges for the competition. Students from Cherry Creek and Riverdale Ridge took the top two spots and qualified for state. And while the Gateway students didn’t win the competition, Woods said they gained valuable experience and connections with the industry partners who could become their future employers.
“That’s the whole point of these types of elective classes,” said Woods. “It’s to give students a taste of what these careers are so they can start making that decision of, ‘Is this what I want to do for my career?’”