Designing and Building Dog Houses
IVVC is an outstanding opportunity; it also can be life changing for some. The Construction Trades program allows you to learn so much about actual jobs. It lets you have a different environment out of your home school and so much more. When it comes to Construction Trades, this program teaches me things every day. We have done plenty of projects in and out of the classroom. I remember when I first heard about this program that it sounded like the most boring possible program ever. I could say this class has not come close to that description.
We are in the classroom for a little bit of the day. You do learn about your basics, such as how to read blueprints or do estimates, but there's so much more to this class than that. We have worked in the shop (our work space) building lots of different projects. For example, we have built multiple sheds and had the chance to sell them, we've made backyard games, and we went off site and have worked on projects for park districts. We have even gotten the chance to design a dog park, and make our own costs estimates and blueprints.
"These small or big projects have a surprisingly big impact on a lot of people who take the class."
One of our projects has stuck out to a lot of people and I’d say that’s our dog houses. Our class has gotten the opportunity to get a partner (classmate) and make our own dog house and sell it. This project is a really good example of our class. We have an amazing teacher who loves his class wholeheartedly, so with that being said he really wanted to see us be able to do our own project and to learn from our own experiences but also to have fun with it.
The dog houses have been a piece of work. You and your partner design this dog house and build it top to bottom almost however you want. This helps us to see how far we have come in this class, how much we’ve learned, and helps us to learn how to do something on our own (or with a little help). These projects are a lot of fun whether they are big or small. You get to work with your friends, you get to improve yourself as well as help others to improve on their work, and a lot more.
The dog house project started off with making blueprints, taking the cost estimates, and putting it all towards the question, “How are we going to build this?”. We go out to the shop and get to work each day on them. Everyone has their own design and we all just work side by side to get ours done.
These small or big projects have a surprisingly big impact on a lot of people who take the class. You learn so much in a surprisingly short time. This class really does help to prepare you for a job you could get in the future. I'm glad I took it and would recommend it to many people.