STEAM Week 2024 At Harmony
New Business Development Manager, Lane Powell shows HKLC students how metal is bent using our new press brake.
STEAM Week is an annual event that celebrates science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics, and how each of these disciplines is inherently connected. While STEAM week often takes place during different months of the year, the students at Harmony Kids Learning Center celebrated STEAM week 2024 during the month of August. Each year, HKLC collaborates with Harmony Enterprises to provide tours of our manufacturing facility and fun-filled topics that teach the kids about specific parts of manufacturing.
This year was no exception! We were thrilled to have the students come and learn all about process flow as it relates to manufacturing and the basic steps required to shape raw steel into our long-lasting vertical recycling balers.
According to method.me, manufacturing process flows “detail each step of the product development process, from ideation to distribution. Manufacturing engineers can benefit from a process flow by standardizing each phase and specifying resource needs. Manufacturing process flows should be measurable, especially regarding inventory management and production times. You can use these numbers to create benchmarks and actionable goals for improvement.”
Welder, Dave Tostenson shows the students how he welds or “glues” the pieces of this low profile together, using specific prints and instructions.
For the purposes of the tour, we outlined how steel is brought in from U.S. manufacturers, and is:
- “cut” by our plasma table
- “bent” by our press brakes
- “glued” by our welders
- “colored” by our painter
- “assembled” with motors, electrical boxes, cylinders, sensors, oil coolers, chains, etc.
The students got to see Harmony Employees in each area, doing each of these tasks. When they were done with the tour, each student received a free activity booklet in which they could mimic these same process flow steps with a paper cut out of a baler.
To make their balers, students need to cut out a baler, bend flaps to make it stand up, glue the larger pieces of the baler together, color it with crayons or markers, and assemble some extra pieces onto the machines.
If you would like to use this activity at home or in your classrooms, you can download a free pdf to print out, free of any commercial licensing, here.
Building Our Future!
We love celebrating our career, community, culture, and company, especially with young people.
By participating in career exploration and STEAM activities with Harmony Kids Learning Center, we realize that we are building our future by inspiring to-be engineers, welders, fabricators, painters, and more! Not only do they get to learn about things like manufacturing process flow, they get to see the important work their parents and friends do!
This is satisfying for us at Harmony Enterprises. We get to do this all while making the earth a better place for this and other generations to come.
If you have any questions about our waste handling or recycling products or service, please call us at (507) 886-6666 today! We are here to help!
