YOUNGSTOWN — They were given a budget to buy vehicle parts to test the wheels they manufactured from clay in a hands-on endeavor to introduce them to modern manufacturing, giving them a lasting memory that could be the spark for a career.

“We want them to walk away with a cool memory, not just sit and get, because most of that gets forgotten, but a very cool experience of manufacturing,” Josh Cramer, education and workforce development director with America Makes, said.

In this instance, the “them” to whom Cramer is referring were about 40 eighth-grade students from Warren City Schools who spent the morning and afternoon Friday at the downtown Youngstown organization for Manufacturing Day 2023.

Marked the first Friday in October, Manufacturing Day was started by the Manufacturing Institute to open eyes and doors; and inspire and educate people about the new manufacturing industry as well as build a foundation of future workers in the industry.

This year’s event was co-hosted by America Makes, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, the public-private partnership that’s leading the way in the U.S. for additive manufacturing technology and education, and the Mahoning Valley Manufacturers Coalition, a network of local manufacturers that works to support manufacturers and bolster the workforce.

“Really, I think it’s one, exposure,” Alex Hertzer, senior project manager with MVMC of the importance of events like the one Friday. “For a lot of our students, they don’t really know — they might drive past manufacturers, they have Foxconn in their backyard or drive past Vallourec — but they don’t really know what happens inside the building.”

“The other significant thing is how do we get them to think about that as a career opportunity. What we are trying to do today (Friday) is really to get them to think about the manufacturing process through this hands-on activity, taking them all the way from design and engineering through prototyping, blue print making,” Hertzer said.

The first half of the day, the students from all four of Warren’s PK-8 schools — Jefferson, Lincoln, McGuffey and Willard — spent working on and testing their project cars. The second part they met with several local manufacturers to learn about those specific businesses: Vallourec, Linde, City Machine Technologies, Hynes Industries, Schwebel’s, Brilex and Foxconn. America Makes and MVMC also had booths.

During the morning, the students were put into groups and paired with a mentor from one of the companies.

The project was a snippet of a larger piece of educational material developed by America Makes to encourage middle school students and their parents to learn more about additive manufacturing when it comes to 3D-manufacturing parts for an autonomous vehicle.

The part pulled out dealt with the wheels, helping the students to understand different designs, circumference and speed and velocity, “so we’re talking science, we’re talking math,” Cramer said on the way toward “really getting an understanding for a manufacturing company” when its coupled with other lessons, from budgeting to assembly to supply chain.