Westfield Vocational-Technical High School sophomore Mira Mayboroda checks the blueprint as she and classmate Vitiliy Tereshchuk work on a project to make identifying tags for the keys rings for the police department’s fleet of vehicles. (Photo by Carl E. Hartdegen)
WESTFIELD – When new key tags were needed for the police department’s fleet of vehicles Officer Michael Gamache knew right where to turn – to the vocational school.
Gamache, an officer assigned to the department’s Traffic and Safety Bureau, said that the tags identifying the keys for cruisers and other police vehicles had worn out so he asked Officer Tracey Ploof, the school resource officer at Westfield Vocational-Technical High School, to pass a request on to the school’s manufacturing technology department for new metal tags.
Instructor Ron Nadeau said “When they came to us we said ‘Sure, whatever you want’” and found that that the project fit perfectly with the progress a group of sophomore students were making in the curriculum.
Nadeau and a colleague, Jayme Coggin, selected and worked with a group of five students – Tyler Hall, Vitiliy Tereshchuk, Mike Clegg, Brad Alvorda and Mira Mayboroda – who were learning about partially computer numerically controlled milling machines and assigned them the project.
Nadeau said that he contacted a person he knows who works at Lyman Sheet Metal in Southampton and said “they welcomed us with open arms” and donated the material, cut into the required metal blanks, for the tags.
Nadeau said that the students were asked to produce two sets of aluminum tags numbered 1 to 49.
He said that the students used software which is taught at the school and used in industry and each student was responsible for writing a program for specific numerals using cartesian coordinates.
With the programs written, the students designed a fixture to hold the blanks when a partially computer controlled milling machine was used to inscribe the numerals into the blanks and machine a hole in the tag to accommodate a key ring.
Gamache said “Between motorcycles, cars, trailers, detective cars etcetera we’re up to 41 vehicles” and said that he asked for 45 tags for insurance.
He said he asked for two of each so there would be spares.
Nadeau said that he is happy to help the police and said that the project was an educational challenge for the students that fit well with their curriculum.
