Skills Work - At Camp!

Fleming College, Peterborough

Okay, I tried another Skills Work! ® camp – this time in Peterborough at Fleming College.  The week was totally amazing!  I tried so many new things, and the college gave us a barbecue!  So awesome.

So we totally got to tour a TV station.  It was the local Cogeco station, and we had the run of the place because everybody was out for the summer.  We used all the cameras, we pretended to do our own talk shows.  It was so wicked!  I love TV, but I really liked learning the behind-the-scenes stuff, like everything that has to be done with lighting, sound, camera angles, and everything!  Cool!

I also got to try a plumbing workshop, which I’ve never done before.  But you know what?  It didn’t bother me at all.  Having tried carpentry and electrical work, and a whole bunch of other trades made me feel so ready for plumbing!  Our workshop leaders were Gord and Michael and they gave us all the tools and equipment to make CD/video game holders.  I never thought of using copper pipes for that, but you totally can!  My parents were so impressed!  And now it’s in our living room, holding all my favourite video games!

The next workshop we went into was carpentry.  By now, I’m pretty schooled at carpentry.  Our workshop leader was Simon, and I really liked his workshop, it was so different – we made squirrel feeders!  My mom says that maybe it’ll keep the squirrels out of the birdfeeder.  I hope she’s right because all the animals should get good food, especially in the winter.  We also made name plates to hang on our bedroom doors.

One of the coolest things I’ve done so far was tour the Canadian Canoe Museum.  I didn’t even know there was one.  Who would ever think canoes are so fascinating that they would start a museum?  But if you think about it, a lot of Canada was discovered and mapped by people using canoes to get around, so it totally makes sense.  Anyway, after we looked around a bit we carved paddles, which was super cool.  Maybe I should start canoeing when I’m done camp!

Our last workshop of the week was brick masonry with Wayne.  I bet I could totally become a bodybuilder by being a brick mason first.  This is definitely a job where you get huge muscles!  Everybody got their own work station and we built brick walls.  So much harder than you would think!  It was fun though.  I like things to be challenging.  It’s just boring if it’s too easy.

Every week, I get even more pumped for the next week.  I can’t wait!

Skills Work - At Camp!

College Boreal, Timmins

So after my week at Cambrian, I headed further north to Timmins and College Boreal.  Timmins is so pretty!

This week was a lot of fun.  There were a lot of us at this camp, so we were split into two groups for many of the activities and workshops.  Sometimes it was just us girls, and that was kinda fun!

 

On our first day, we did a lot of electrical stuff.  We had a workshop with Serge, where we played around a lot with circuits.  It was so easy to do things this time, because I already knew what I was doing.  I’m turning into such a pro!  We wired connections between batteries and lightbulbs and tried out different configurations to see what would happen.  Our camp leaders, Emily, Kaela and Mo, also showed us how to make electric cars, and they were actually pretty cool.  It moves by battery-powered propeller, and mine’s pretty fast.  Plus I got to decorate the car however I wanted.  I’m so ready to have a driver’s license already!

This week had a carpentry workshop too, and I found that I liked carpentry a lot better this time too, because I had totally done it before!  Serge was back again, and he helped us make toolboxes.  We stained them afterward so they look ultra sleek.  What’s the point of having a toolbox with no finesse to it?

Hairstyling was really awesome.  I love to play around with my own hair.  Sometimes I put in colour streaks (they wash out, which is the only reason my mom lets me do that!), and add in braids and clips and headbands.  But this was even more fun because we were in a real training salon!  We got to use the rollers, the curling and straightening irons and the manicure tables and stuff.  Even the boys were way into it, which I was totally not expecting.  Hilarious and super fun!

The week was so busy, but we even went on a couple of tours!  One was to the Goldcorp Mill and Plant.  I had no idea how many skilled tradespeople are involved with mining – millwrights, machinists, electricians and welders, just to name a few.  Plus, mines are pretty sophisticated.  About 80% of this one is run by computers!  Mining is a really big deal in Ontario, so it’s good to know there are so many options!

The other tour was of the Sandy Falls Generating Station.  That really made me think about where our electricity comes from and just how much effort goes into generating it.  I think recycling and conserving energy is really important, but I will pay way more attention now.  My parents leave lights on and the computer on and stuff all the time, so I’m totally going to be watching them.

Second week of camp is another win!  This summer is turning out to be pretty amazing so far!

Skills Work - At Camp!

Mohawk College, STARRT Institute, Stoney Creek

Uh-oh.  Now I can’t decide which camp I like better.  And I still have three more to go!

I spent the week of July 11^th at the Stoney Creek campus of Mohawk College.  It was pretty cool, because the whole campus seems to be all about skilled trades!  And since there weren’t too many people around, we got to use all the recreation stuff at lunch that the students normally use – like ping pong tables!

On the first day, a guy named Eric came to talk to us about safety.  He told us about his first job when he was 16.  During his first week, a crane operator asked him to help guide a steel wall to an area of the factory.  Eric ended up having his lower half crushed by the wall!  I couldn’t believe he could talk about it so calmly!   Our leaders, Jen and Shannon, talked to us about how safety is extra important to younger people.  They said younger people often don’t feel comfortable asking for help on the job because they don’t want to seem incompetent.  Eric said himself that he clearly remembers thinking “isn’t there someone else more qualified around to help with this?”  That was a scary start to the week, but seeing Eric so positive really helped to make it less scary!

One workshop I really liked was woodworking.  Our workshop leader was Shari, and she taught us how to make toolboxes.  I really liked trying out the power tools, like the drill press and the band saw.  And then we painted our toolboxes!  Shari’s been teaching at Mohawk for a long time, and she let us keep the hand tools we used to make our toolboxes, which was really nice of her.  Then, in the afternoon, we decorated cakes!  It wasn’t quite the same as being in a big fancy kitchen and making a whole meal, but it was a lot of fun.  And it was delicious!

Tour day was weird, only because our two tours were so different from each other.  We went to Laurenzo’s School of Hair Design in the morning.  It’s a training centre for learning hairstyling.  The apprentices there taught us about different hairstyling techniques.  I had no idea how much there was to it!  It’s a really creative skilled trade.  The students showed us the mannequin heads they practice on, which are incredibly creepy.  But you can do crazy designs with all kinds of colours on a mannequin head, where a real person might not like it so much!   All of us got free haircuts and styles, and one of the other campers even got a mohawk! 

We spent the afternoon touring Dofasco.  Dofasco is a huge company that makes steel.  We got to see the parts of the facility where they do all the repairs for everything, and we had to wear a lot of safety gear, including hard hats.  (Unfortunately, that was the end of the mohawk, but after listening to Eric’s story, I’m a safety kind of guy!)  At the end of the tour, we were given toolkits that included a tape measure, flashlight, pliers and wire strippers by David, who helped arrange the tour.  I love free stuff!  And now I have more items for my toolbox!

I’m still having a great time, and I can’t wait to try the next activities!

Skills Work - At Camp!

Cambrian College, Sudbury

Hi everyone!  This is Nikki.  You’ll all be pleased to know that I’m a lot less terrified than I was before camp.  I haven’t done a lot of this hands-on kind of stuff, and I was pretty scared of looking dumb…or hurting myself.  But I did just fine.  In fact, I had a lot of fun!

I spent my first week at camp at Cambrian College.  I was sooo nervous because I thought I would be the only girl, but I wasn’t.  And we did so many different things with the professors from the college, and with our camp leaders Mo and Will, that I didn’t have time to be nervous!

One of our workshops was AutoCAD, with Phil.  Lots of people in industry use AutoCAD to make technical drawings of all kinds of stuff – airplane parts, musical instruments, even houses!  We used it to make drawings of race cars.  I’m pretty good at computers. I use MSN and Facebook and I make games and stuff all the time, so I figured it would be way easy.  But this was trickier than I thought it would be.  I liked it anyway, though, because it was challenging.

The next day was super busy.  We started with an electrical workshop.  I thought it would be boring, but again I was surprised.  There’s a lot that goes into wiring different types of electrical things, as I found out from our workshop leaders, Marcia and Scott.  We kind of moved to different stations, working on a panel, and wiring a switch, an outlet and a motor.  When I have my own house someday, I’m totally going to wire outlets and stuff in it, just because I can!

In the afternoon, we went on a tour of CBC radio.  We totally got to make our own news broadcast!  It was really, really cool.  Like we were real newscasters!  There was a weather person out on the street, and everything!  Our tour was led by Markus Schwabe, who hosts Morning North on CBC.  I think my parents listen to him and I thought it was totally lame that they listen to CBC radio.  But Markus was so nice, maybe I’ll start listening too.  When I’m not sleeping in!

I really liked our carpentry workshop.  The workshop leader was Steve, who I found out also volunteers at the big skilled trades competition that Skills Canada – Ontario has in the spring every year.  Steve showed us how to make wooden boxes.  I didn’t know that glue is used so much in woodworking.  I thought it was nails.  But the nails are only to hold everything together until the glue dries!  Anyway, now I have a good hiding place to keep my stuff away from my little brother.  And I made it myself!

Not gonna lie, I was pretty surprised by my first week.  I had a lot of fun, and I met some really nice kids, and I got to try all kinds of new stuff!  I don’t know that I’ve picked a career out of just one week, but I definitely have way more to think about.  Maybe I’ll get more ideas at the next camp!

Skills Work - At Camp!

Humber College, North Campus

Hi!  Tyrone here, still recovering from my first week at camp!  Last week, I checked out the camp at Humber College in Toronto.  It was amazing!  Humber offers training in so many different trades and technologies, and some of the professors actually volunteered their time to teach us a bit about their areas of expertise.  We did so many workshops and activities, and even went offsite for a day.  What a great week!

Our first workshop was all about HVAC – that’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning.  We got to use welding torches – awesome!!  We also did an activity with electrical currents, hooking up an electrical circuit.  Our workshop leader was Mary, who teaches HVAC at Humber.  I found out afterward that Mary has also been a mentor with the “Skills Work!^® for Women” Networking Dinner program and a judge for the Cardboard Boat Races!  Anyway, nobody told me I was going to get to play with torches this week.  I’m always the last to know everything!

On Wednesday, we did an electrical workshop – all about pipes.  I didn’t know pipes were used so much in electrical work, but they’re often used to insulate wires, protect them from being touched or bumped, or even just to bunch them together so everything looks neat.  We bent those plastic and metal pipes into all different shapes with fancy tools and our big muscles!  (Okay, the heat and tools helped…so did our leaders.)  This time, our workshop leader was Tony and he was really nice.  I bet he’s good at electrical stuff.

Our off-site trip for the week was to a place called Build-It-Yourself Learning Centre.  It was a huge workshop and classroom and we made birdhouses, right from scratch!  Our teacher was Ian, and taught us so much stuff!  He taught us how to use all the tools – hammers, saws and measuring tapes, and about safety in the workshop.  He even talked about how we can become carpenters someday.  I’m not sure I want to be a carpenter, but my birdhouse is pretty sweet and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of showing it off!

On Friday, we got to do some cooking!  My mom was really excited when she found out I would be learning how to cook something.  She’s been trying to get me to do that for ages!  After this workshop, I just might be more willing to volunteer.  I mean, come on.  We made pizza!  And it was amazing!  Chef Trevor really knows his stuff!  Before we got started, he taught us a bit about induction stoves.  An induction stove only heats the pot or pan, and the pot or pan heats the food.  One of our leaders, April, actually gave Chef Trevor a fifty dollar bill to put under a pot of water because he said it wouldn’t burn. He was right, but I can’t believe she trusted him!  Fifty bucks!!  Anyway, then we split into pairs and made pizza.  My favourite part was eating it.  I’m a pretty good pizza-maker, if I do say so myself!

What an awesome, awesome week.  I can’t wait to see what the next camp has in store for me!!