FOND DU LAC, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Brats, burgers and hot dogs were sizzling in Fond du Lac Friday.
Groups of area high school students were showing off charcoal grills that they made from scratch, as part of ‘Project G.R.I.L.L.’.
Seven area high schools, consisting of 77 students, took over the Festival Foods parking lot in Fond du Lac Friday morning.
It’s for Project G.R.I.L.L, a project which helps these students get real-world manufacturing experience.
“Local manufacturers partner with local high schools within the area,” said Jamie Cleland, chairperson for Project G.R.I.L.L.. “The kids embark on about an eight month journey where they completely come up from ground zero and culminate here today.”
He says the program teaches students all the steps of taking an idea from concept through production.
“And they create a working grill,” said Cleland.
Project G.R.I.L.L. is program of Envision Greater Fond du Lac. G.R.I.L.L. stands for ‘Growing Readiness in Learning and Leading.’
“Roughly over 65% of these students have mentioned they would like to pursue a career in manufacturing which is great, that’s kind of what we’re after,” said Cleland.
“I’m going to MSOE for mechanical engineering,” said Talan Luedtke, a senior at Lomira High School.
He says being part of Project G.R.I.L.L has helped him gain skills for when he goes off to college.
“One of our guys did all the welding, I did a lot of the forming of the metal, and we learned a lot like just about time management, team work and it really came together good,” said Luedtke.
Luedtke and his team partnered up with the company Wabash.
“The most impressive thing to me was these kids did all the work,” said Marty Nell, a welding instructor at Wabash.
Nell was the team instructor for Lomira High School.
“I just kind of showed them how to do a few things, they came in, rolled their own bottle to make this grill,” said Nell. “We want to get young kids into the skilled trades and just give them an option.”
Wabash is the country’s leading producer of semi-trailers and liquid transportation systems.
“So we came up with the idea of making a gimmick milk truck tank,” said Luedtke. “They helped us donate a tank that we could use for us and they sent us a lot of materials and stuff and we fabricated everything ourselves in house.”
An idea that ended up taking home, first place.
This is Project Grill’s 15th annual event.
For more information about the program, click here.
