Give Work A Chance: The Thorminator
To help Career Technical Education, CTE, students to get a better appreciation of engineering functions and to get more excited about tools, I created the Thorminator Challenge.
Students are divided up into groups of civil engineers, mechanical engineers and forensic engineers. Engineering schools joke that civil engineers make targets, mechanical engineers make weapons and forensic engineers evaluate the mess.
CTE students at North Davidson Middle School team up to pick up the Thorminator, a 50-pound hammer. {Contributed photo/Mandy Coppley}
So, during CTE classes, area Davidson County Middle Schools are assigning students into these groups. The civil engineering groups get a piece of foam, two feet of duct tape, some other items and an egg. Their job is to create protection for their egg.
The smallest boys in the class are assigned to be mechanical engineers. Their job is to hoist the 50-pound hammer and smash the civil engineers’ egg protection. This forces them to team up and hoist the hammer together.
After the smashing, the forensic engineers evaluate the damage and determine if the egg survived the smashing.
This simple exercise gets the students to switch their thought processes into their roles and better connect with engineering functions while at the same time having fun. Fun is the most important element. Analysts have evaluated that students better comprehend lessons when fun elements are included.
From the past and the future, the Thorminator, half Thor, half Terminator, was created to help Forge Greensboro Makerspace raise money for a new space by smashing an old Volvo. Scrap aircraft aluminum, CNC cut parts donated by a local machine shop, were welded together to form the giant hammer.
CTE students at North Davidson Middle School do a forensic analysis to see if the egg survived the smashing of the Thorminator, a 50-pound hammer. {Contributed photo/Mandy Coppley}
Later, volunteer techies at Maker Depot in Totowa, New Jersey, added over 1,000 LEDs that really get kids’ attention. I have taken the Thorminator to over 45 states and estimate over 20,000 people have hoisted the monstrosity as a challenge and taken selfies. I tell the kids, “You know what it means if you can pick up a 50-pound hammer? That means you can also pick up your clothes and your toys.” Their parents high-five me and agree. The kids look up as if they have been tricked but are proud of their achievement, as they should be.
Why is the Thorminator important?
In this era, when everyone's head is stuck in their cell phones and hypnotized to all that can be done with a mobile phone, something big, different and interesting needs to be created to wake up people to the fact there are so many other tools that are important to use, too.
When you walk around with the Thorminator on your shoulder like Paul Bunyan wielding a giant ax, kids pay attention. Security does, too. It was not easy to get approved by secret service patrols when I took the Thorminator to the US Congressional Maker Faire in 2018. For some reason, each time I take Thorminator to an airport, the TSA staff says I have to go through the “random check” for inspection.
When I met Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame, Savage had just written a best-selling book called Every Tool Can be a Hammer. I told him every tool could be a hammer but not every hammer can be a Thorminator. Savage was amazed at the monstrous size of the 50-pound hammer.
Everyone asks what the Thorminator actually does. I say it does something miraculous in this era of time. The Thorminator gets people to put down their cell phones and pick up tools. Since it was homemade, it is a great example that we don't have to buy everything, we can still make cool stuff ourselves. That's an important, inspirational message for students to learn. Much more important to make items than to just go to a big box store and buy stuff.
Let’s GIVE WORK A CHANCE and grow the next generation of innovators and manufacturers in Davidson County. Go Davidson County Grow!!!
Joel Leonard can be reached at 336-338-1011 or joelskilltv@gmail.com.
