Skate park coming soon to Sweden

As part of a school project, students in Brockport High School have been researching and designing a skate park for the Town of Sweden.

Student Michael O’Laughlin, a media contact for the Engineering Design and Development class said, "For about nine years Sweden has been trying to get a skate park and for three years our teacher has been in pursuit of this project for the town."

Town officials approached teacher Brett Handley when they were trying to determine the types of ramps to install in the park. Handley then came up with the idea of having his class research, design and construct the layout and ramps for the park.

Handley and Sweden Town Board Member Rob Carges proposed the project to the class.

The EDD class is part of a four-year, five class pre-engineering program called Project Lead the Way. Students participating in the course must have completed four prerequisite classes that include Drawing Design and Production (DDP), Digital Electronics, Computer Integrated Manufacturing Systems (CIMS), Principles Of Engineering (POE) and Engineering Design and Development (EDD).

Last year’s class project was a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV), an unmanned submarine built to grab metal off the bottom of the pool floor, O’Laughlin said. "The point of the class is to incorporate what we’ve learned in four years into a single 'grand' project," he explained. "It is a capstone class, similar and possibly more involved that what an engineering student would do in a capstone class in their senior year at college."

The town will pour the asphalt pad for the skate park and the students will complete the remainder of the project. The students completed their research phase on October 15. "This phase included researching every skate park in a 50 mile radius from the school, researching every skate shop in Monroe County, taking detailed pictures of the construction of ramps from the skate parks in the area, media contacts, corporate sponsorship, fundraising, interviews of self proclaimed skaters, bladers and BMX bikers and a materials list," O’Laughlin said.

The students will have the design phase completed by Christmas break, he said. "During this phase we will have drawn the ramps up in a conceptual 3D phase, then we will create accurate 2D drawings from our concepts," he said. "Once we have created our drawings we will know exactly how much material we will be using down to every nut and bolt."

The students plan to send their programs to RIT's Brinkman CNC lab where the ramps will be milled out to a scaled down model. Once they have finished that, they will begin the construction that will go on to April break.

The ramps will be constructed at an airport hanger on Colby Street.