Gahanna-Jefferson high school and middle school students have access to new tools to explore career paths, thanks to a new MIT fabrication laboratory known as the “Fab Lab.”
The lab, financed through a $750,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Education’s Straight A Fund, is mobile and will be shared among district buildings.
Gahanna-Jefferson is one of several Franklin County school districts participating in the Innovation Generation initiative, which is part of the national Pathways to Prosperity Network that seeks to establish a career pathway in advanced manufacturing/robotics, business logistics, health care and information technology.
Beth Spieth, the district’s director of curriculum and testing, said the district pursued two career pathways: manufacturing/robotics and health care related to the lab.
The Fab Lab typically includes “a laser cutter that makes two-dimensional and three-dimensional structures, a sign cutter that plots in copper to make antennas and flex circuits, a high-resolution NC milling machine that makes circuit boards and precision parts, a large wood router for building furniture and housing and a suite of electronic components and programming tools for low-cost, high-speed microcontrollers for on-site rapid circuit prototyping,” according to MIT.
