RPI holds National Manufacturing Day for local high schoolers

TROY, N.Y. (NEWS10) - The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) celebrated National Manufacturing Day on Friday. It kicked off with the landing of a Black Hawk helicopter in the heart of the campus, in front of the nearly 150 high schoolers from around the Capital Region.

The day was about giving the students a hands-on introduction to the technologically advanced world of manufacturing, and all of the different careers that manufacturing has to offer.

Students came from: New Visions, Averill Park, Berlin, HVCC STEM High, Columbia East Greenbush, Mohonasen, and Watervliet High Schools, and were spilt into groups then taken around the campus for a hands on introduction to the manufacturing program at RPI.

Columbia East Greenbush High School junior, Ethan McGrady, said that a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into being in the field sparked his interest.

"I have been interested in biomedical engineering," McGrady said. "I have always liked biology, and I’ve always liked things like cells, and I heard recently that there is technology that really helps people. I think it’s really cool. I am like behind-the-scenes. I would not be mad to be behind the scenes, like it looks really cool.”

RPI also set up a discussion panel led by Sam Chipannone, the Director of Manufacturing for the School of Engineering, and Ryan Patry, an RPI alumni and Lockheed Martin Fellow. The panel also involved other alumni who currently work in manufacturing and shared their experience in the field and gave advice to the students.

“In my undergraduate, during my undergraduate, junior year, I did a general manufacturing class here," Patry said. "We got to go around and see several local manufacturing businesses, and that’s where it kind of broke the stereotype where you usually think manufacturing is dirty and dangerous, but it’s not, so that really made me interested in manufacturing.”

The Dean of Engineering at RPI, Shekhar Garde, said he hopes that these high school students will expand their passion for manufacturing and potentially apply to the RPI program.

“If you look at the history of RPI, I think our graduates have always been at the leading edge of designing, making, and building things from Brooklyn Bridge to microprocessors and digital cameras and sunscreen, lotion, and so on," Garde said. "So I think there is kind of a DNA of RPIs' to solve problems and make things.”