Earlier in the year, FCW was approached by Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute (CCC&TI) about creating a training workshop for students in their College and Career Readiness (CCR) program.  They had read about the eggbot workshop that FCW created for Granite Falls Middle School and were initially interested in using the eggbots for their needs as well.  After some discussion, it was decided (primarily due to expense) that a better workshop for their needs would be an Introduction to Soldering.  The tentative dates were set for sometime late July or early August.

Soldering irons and simple toolkits were procured from Sparkfun.com and a simple LED blinker was chosen for the project.  On August 4th, 5th, and 6th, a total of 42 students attended the soldering training at FCW.  Rich spent about 40 minutes going over the fundamentals of soldering, the specifics of the board, and component identification.  For the remainder of the two-hour slots, Rich, Michelle, Gene, Colin, and Adam assisted the students in assembling their kits.  Most of the attempts were successful and the students were able to keep their creation.

FCW was happy to work with CCC&TI on this project and is currently designing additional workshops that they may use.  We hope to work with the other local community colleges and public schools to promote interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) activities.