{"id":323656,"date":"2025-08-06T22:42:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T22:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/323656\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T22:42:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T22:42:11","slug":"biw-uses-virtual-reality-to-teach-aroostook-campers-to-paint-and-weld-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/323656\/","title":{"rendered":"BIW uses virtual reality to teach Aroostook campers to paint and weld"},"content":{"rendered":"

As skilled laborers age into retirement and fewer younger workers appear to take their places, the number of U.S. tradespeople is shrinking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why, in a dimly lit gymnasium more than four hours from their shipyard Friday, instructors from Bath Iron Works taught 12-year-olds in Limestone how to weld. <\/p>\n

A hands-on workshop allowed children attending the Maine School of Science and Mathematics\u2019 STEM Summer Camp to use the same virtual and augmented reality tools Bath Iron Works \u2014 Maine\u2019s fourth largest employer \u2014 uses to train its employees in stick welding and spray painting.<\/p>\n

The company brings its virtual\u00a0tools across Maine, from career fairs to high schools to career and technical education programs, to introduce students both to the trades and Bath Iron Works. The goal? To create a pipeline of young talent that can shore up its workforce and overcome staffing challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times, kids haven\u2019t had experience welding, or where are you going to get to experience spray painting?\u201d BIW High School Workforce Development Coordinator Meridith Gray said. \u201cThis is a way to do it that\u2019s safe and it helps them and it\u2019s engaging. If you can gamify a lot of different skills, you\u2019re going to get a lot of kids interested in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Virtual and augmented reality programs are a new cornerstone of how BIW trains its workers. The company\u2019s virtual reality lab in Brunswick offers programming in welding, painting, sand blasting and forklift, crane and stockpicker operation. <\/p>\n

\"\"A screen shows a live view of a Maine School of Science and Mathematics STEM camper\u2019s welding in augmented reality. Credit: Cameron Levasseur \/ The County<\/p>\n

It saves the business significant material cost. For a 90-second test demonstration of its VR spray painting system\u00a0where\u00a0an instructor only partially\u00a0painted an I-beam,\u00a0the program estimated a cost savings of more than $550.<\/p>\n

It also trains workers faster. <\/p>\n

\u201cUsually it takes three to four days for somebody to start passing qualifications in welding school,\u201d Gray said. \u201cIf they practice on this it goes down to a day or two.\u201d<\/p>\n

At MSSM, none of the middle-school campers are poised to jump into a career in welding \u2014 at least not quite yet \u2014 but the workshop was one of dozens of learning experiences at the STEM camp designed to enrich campers\u2019 knowledge in those fields. <\/p>\n

The annual four-week summer camp runs through July. The first week is open to children aged 10-12, and the latter three weeks for those aged 12-14. Each week\u2019s lessons emphasize a theme. This year\u2019s themes \u2014 discovery, space, terra and tech \u2014 each brought in 50-70 campers from across Maine and beyond. <\/p>\n

Campers experience a mixture of hands-on lessons at the school and field trips to pertinent locations, from the Francis Malcolm Science Center in Easton to the National Weather Service station in Caribou and Twin Rivers Paper Company in Madawaska.<\/p>\n

Garrett Kirk, a rising freshman at MSSM who is from Hermon, chose to attend the school in part because of the camp, which he attended for a third year this summer. <\/p>\n

\u201cI like science and I like how they really went deep into science,\u201d Kirk said. \u201cI saw their science classes and I looked into my school and what they offered and [MSSM] offered a lot more in-depth stuff here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The school upgraded its camp this year, said Ryan McDonald, MSSM\u2019s director of communications and summer programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt used to be more fun with STEM, this year we made it so each class has a learning objective,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, when they finish\u00a0the photography class, they are comfortable using a DSLR camera.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bath Iron Works made the drive north twice during the camp, first during discovery week, where campers learned about buoyancy and hull shape in a tinfoil regatta. <\/p>\n

\"\"Nolan Haynes of Pownal, a camper at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics\u2019 summer STEM camp in Limestone, assesses the stability of his \u201ccheese whiz welding\u201d structure. Credit: Cameron Levasseur \/ The County<\/p>\n

\u201c[Gray] reached out to me and said, \u2018Would you like to take a tour of Bath Iron Works?\u2019\u201d McDonald said. \u201cI was like, \u2018That\u2019s amazing, except you\u2019re four or five hours away, there\u2019s no way we could do that.\u2019 And she said, \u2018We\u2019ll come to you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s second appearance capped off the last week of the camp, serving as both an introduction to the trades and a final hook for campers interested in going to MSSM. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a vital recruiting tool for the residential magnet school and the first of several stops in The County this year for Bath Iron Works. The company plans to bring its virtual and augmented reality systems to high schools and CTE centers in Presque Isle, Caribou and Houlton this fall. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt some point I calculated something like 57 percent of current MSSM students attended at least one week of summer camp at one point,\u201d McDonald said. \u201cSo it\u2019s a good feeder program. It\u2019s also just really fun.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As skilled laborers age into retirement and fewer younger workers appear to take their places, the number of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3162],"tags":[116214,49944,53,16,15,3243,3244],"class_list":{"0":"post-323656","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-virtual-reality","8":"tag-bath-iron-works","9":"tag-surprise","10":"tag-technology","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-virtual-reality","14":"tag-vr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114984238921541481","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}