The canine residents of East Hartford have a group of East Hartford High School students to thank for their new agility equipment at Foran Park. When the dog park opened back in September, it simply featured an open area for play, but no obstacles. The town came to the Career and Technical Education classes at EHHS for help.
“I think it’s nice and an interesting project,” said EHHS Senior Elijah Trumpet. “This is one of the biggest projects I’ve helped out with.”
Engineering Design students got to work first on this real-world project. Their teacher Michael Vaughan had them use the processes they learned in class to come up with ideas then make prototype models. The students scored the models in a criteria matrix, and those with the highest scores were handed off to the woodworking students for production.
Students in woodworking class and in the woodworking club, under the supervision of Teacher Duane McDuffee, created and crafted several different obstacles including jumping hurdles and pipe bridges.
Those were then moved from the high school wood shop and installed at the park for dogs to enjoy.
EHHS Senior Alejandro Morales said, “It’s fun. I live close by the park and I’m excited to see what we worked on there.”