Laguna-Acoma Jr./Sr. High School – Helping Students Gain Practical Job Skills

LAGUNA, NM—Mechatronics, taught by Brandon Gonzales at Laguna-Acoma High School, is preparing students for their future vocations. That future may come sooner than they expect. Gonzales is thorough in his manner of teaching in the Career and Technical Education program. This ensures that when students graduate, they will be competent and ready to enter the profession of their choice.

Mechatronics is a necessary skill set that includes mechanics, electronics, and computing. Those with skills in this field simplify and improve robotics, control systems, and electro-mechanical systems as they are used for automation and manufacturing.

The skills Gonzales is teaching his students will make them specialists that can work across multiple disciplines. In the Mechatronics courses they are gaining a solid base from which to grow. Specialists in this field have both mechanical and electrical engineering skills, and they can work across fields, a mechatronics specialist can work with both mechanical and engineering teams.

Only after studying and passing coursework online, the students will be allowed to use the machinery. Mechatronics entails knowledge of different machines: electrical control systems; coding computer control; and applied electrical control systems.

“We have the electrical wiring systems for the electrical part of it, we also have pneumatics and hydraulics,” Gonzales showed off his complete workroom.

“We have pneumatic systems over here, they use these air hydraulics, they need to have this foundation before we can move on to robotic arms. The goal is to build skills and knowledge so that the students can go into the workforce with certifications and be career ready.”

The coursework for the CTE program is all electives, the students have chosen to be in the class and to learn these skills. Within a year Gonzales expects to be able to offer students certificates of completion. So, after graduating, the students can continue honing their skills by enrolling in a vocational school, like Central New Mexico Community College where they offer an electronics program, for instance. They would follow that skill set with pneumatic electronics, and then hydraulics.

Gonzales mentioned that the Grants Cibola County School system is considering moving all CTE classes to the Continental Divide building which has been purchased by GCCS. The LAHS students would be transported to Grants for their classes, although scheduling, amongst other details, is still being worked on. Grants High School also has a CTE program. The scheduling for GHS students also needs to be arranged due to the two high schools having different schedules. LAHS is on a block system, having MW classes, T TH classes, and all classes on Friday. GHS has a full schedule every day.

Still a separate building like that would be an advantage, Gonzales believes.

There are a few students who need an elective and are placed in the CTE class because nothing else is available. “So, if we did something like that, those kids would want to be there. They would want to learn about these machines. The students that want to be here excel, they do so well. So, if we did the CTE program, maybe we'd have students that wanted to be here, and they would be more involved, they would be more engaged, and they would invest more of their time and efforts.”

Possible career opportunities for students who excel in electronics might be construction, they could be game programmers, they could work on the machines at casinos. There are so many different possibilities for an electrical programmer.

Another career choice is in robotics. The automobile industry uses robotic arms. They are also used in the postal service. Robots have the reputation of being more accurate than a human, for instance, those used in operations where a twitch could have serious consequences. Auto enthusiasts are also familiar with hydraulics. Think of lowriders and air compressors.

“Within the next year or so we'll be teaching the robotic arm program so that the students know how to do those kinds of things and can go out into the world and go to Amazon and go to Intel, places like that, and say I know this stuff,” said the enthusiastic instructor.