Industrial Technology Students Design & Build Lacrosse Lockers

02/24/2023

William Penn University is proud to offer students real-world experiences. A recent Industrial Wood Processing class built out a complete project from planning to installation and all steps in between, with the WPU Lacrosse team benefitting from the work.

The students in INDU 218 collaborated with the Lacrosse team to design custom lockers for their locker room. This project included gathering information from the customer, identifying project specifications, creating 3-D models of the custom-designed locker, developing jigs, fixtures, and assembly processes and more. Fifty lockers were mass produced and installed. The scope of this project was huge, but students alongside Instructor James Smith worked together to make it happen.

“This was a great project for students to work on. It truly was an authentic opportunity where students were able to work with a real customer to both design and produce a custom product on a large scale. I was super impressed by how creative students were as they brainstormed, modeled, and prototyped different configurations of the lacrosse locker and strategies of mass production. Also, students learned to be flexible as they had to deviate from plan several times due to design changes, problems with computer software, and personnel issues. One thing that made this project challenging was the coordination between the many students in class and work study outside of class that worked on this project. We also had a limited amount of time, space, and people, but students rose to the challenge and made it happen,” Smith said of the project.

It was an especially meaningful project for Collin Baliva, an Industrial Technology major, and Captain of the Lacrosse team. “The locker room project was awesome to be a part of. I was able to recruit some other players (Ryan Swarts and Riley West) to help on the locker room building process and the entire team helped in the demolition of the old locker room.”

Thanks to James Smith, INDU218 students, and all involved in this project. Working together to improve the University and grow in skills and experience is at the heart of what we do.