The past few weeks the industrial arts room has been buzzing with activity as Wiscasset Middle High School tech ed. students put the finishing touches to dozens of toy tractors. Most will be donated to the Bath chapter of the Salvation Army and given away to toddlers this holiday season.

Robert Cronk, technology education instructor, challenged his Tech II students to be “innovative, inventive and creative” all in the spirit of giving. The finished product, a handmade wooden toy, would mean a great deal to the kids who received them on Christmas. The project was pretty involved. It required making templates and choosing the right wood. Then came the measuring, cutting, sanding, and painting the individual parts, 2,400 in all, and finally putting all the pieces together. The highlight of the 12-week session was seeing the finished tractors neatly sitting in rows on a table. 

A lesson in mass production

“The idea is to introduce students to the world of manufacturing and mass production,” Cronk explained. The project gives students a chance to experience the process made famous by Henry Ford, during the manufacture of the Model T automobile, albeit on a miniature scale. “When you line them up all together a hundred of them actually doesn’t look like a lot but you have to consider the time it took making all the components. All the pieces had to fit together properly when they were assembled,” added Cronk.

The students also had to put a good deal of thought into the design of their product. It had to be a toy for ages 4 to 7, durable, safe to play with, and fun! It also had to be something either a boy or girl would enjoy having. After building a prototype, the students began the process of mass-producing the parts. At one point they even organized themselves into an assembly line.

There also had to be quality control to take care of details like making sure the tractor’s front and rear wheels rolled easily when pushed forwards and backwards. That proved challenging because the design called for a double set of wooden rear wheels that had to match in size.

Why a tractor?

Cronk said, before starting, each student — there were 20 in all — had to make a product pitch to the entire class. Senior Avery Thomas told the newspaper his idea was to mass-produce a popular folk toy known as “Jacob’s Ladder.” Another student, Kacie Luce, wanted to make a wooden puzzle kids could take apart and put back together. All of the students liked the idea of making something that would be given to kids that often get forgotten during the holiday season.

In the end, Cronk, serving as the CEO and chairman of the board, overruled all the project submissions and went with a proven favorite, a toy tractor. The students then got to work. The morning session, dubbed the John Deere Group, painted their tractors green, while the afternoon class, the Kubota Group, painted theirs orange. Other than the color, they were all identical.

Both groups encountered a few snafus along the way. When the assembly line proved cumbersome, Cronk said team members were given responsibility for assembling the tractors, six apiece. Each unit was also stamped with a number to ensure quality control.

Cronk said the final hours of the course required students to figure out what their product actually cost to manufacture in both time and materials. As an example, Cronk said each of the wooden bodies cost 49 cents to make. There were also the front and rear wheels to consider, the axles, driver’s seat, steering wheel, exhaust pipe, and other parts. Then there was the cost of painting, gluing and assembling to consider.

“Yes, it’s a toy but it’s also a product and having been involved in this from start to finish gives everyone a better understanding and appreciation of what mass production and industrialization involves,” added Cronk. Excluding the design phase, manufacturing the tractors cost about $2.40 each.

The school has been making Christmas toys for a number of years now. Last year the students made kaleidoscopes to give away. Now that their work is finished, Cronk and the students will deliver most of the tractors to the Salvation Army who will find good homes for all of them.

Some of the tractors are also destined for the school’s 100 Points of Light program.