One Up on Everybody Else

For 8 years, Paul Allen had been pining after a laser cutter to use in his engineering classes at Decatur High School. But after his 39 years of teaching, Allen knew better than to assume that he would ever round up $38,000 to spare on buying one.

Then while doing research, Allen heard of a company called Boss Laser in Sanford, Florida which offered a laser cutter three times more powerful than he had been expecting, but also small enough to fit in a classroom door. Also, it was only $20,000.

But even though everything seemed perfect, $20,000 was still a lot of money to drum up.

That’s where 3M came in.

In September 2016, 3M representative Lendon Haggard met with the Decatur City Schools Foundation to discuss career tech needs, and together they decided to meet the need of $19,995, the exact amount needed to buy a laser cutter for Allen’s classroom.

Haggard says, “Since a lot of employees (at 3M) are hired from surrounding communities, it’s critical that 3M support college and career readiness and STEM programs in local schools system.”

Using the generosity of 3M, Allen quickly purchased the laser cutter, and when it arrived in December, 2016, LiftOne donated the service of a forklift to unload the 1600-pound crate.

The laser cutter is currently housed at Decatur High School, but it is used by both high schools, and will be moved to the Austin campus for the joint career tech program in 2018.

With the machine finally in place, Allen and a few students received a full day of training from a Boss Laser representative, and then they were ready to start using it in their engineering, design, and machining classes.

The first project for the massive, shiny, new machine was to design a motor base mounting system for an electric car. Allen’s class was scheduled to compete in an Electrathon race of endurance that year, and needed to start by building the parts.

Until the laser cutter came onto the scene, Allen’s class had always outsourced even their prototypes, a process which slowed them down considerably. The laser cutter revolutionized their time schedule. Knowing that time was crucial in a competition setting, Allen taught his class to convert drawings into wooden prototypes using the laser cutter. Suddenly a process that would have originally taken weeks was whittled down to completion within a single class period.

All that extra time left November through April free to practice, tweak, and adjust the car in preparation for the race. They had months to improve their accuracy.

And it’s no surprise that they won. First place, in fact. “100% accuracy is key, so we practice our butts off, and we end up winning,” Allen says.

In addition to creating winning racecars, Allen’s class uses the laser cutter for other projects like cutting jigs to assemble bridge structures capable of holding up to 300 pounds of pressure. Such bridges have been entered into structural engineering contests and have taken 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd places. The class uses the laser cutter for making thank-you plaques for donors who contribute to their classroom, and Allen even laser cuts wooden diplomas for those who pass all four engineering classes offered at Decatur High School.

Thanks to 3M and the Decatur City Schools Foundation, Allen’s class took home their 31^st State Championship this year, and they couldn’t be more proud. “It’s a pride thing for us,” Allen says. “We want to be the best-dressed, most-feared team out there.”

So by the end of the race, the national competition, the international competition—whatever the accuracy of a laser cutter helps them achieve—Allen’s students are proud of what they’ve created because they know it is the best they can do. “And I’m proud, too,” Allen says. “Just a little.”

It’s not just a car they helped go faster, a bridge they made stronger, or a team they made prouder. Through their generosity, the Foundation and 3M helped students prepare for the real world after high school.

When Allen’s students walk into their first engineering classes at college, they already know how to work some of the machines (like the laser cutter), so they minimize the learning curve in college. 

“That’s what I want,” Allen says. “I want my students to leave Decatur City Schools one up on everybody else.”

And by the sounds of it, 3M might have given Allen’s class two or three up on everybody else.