Teacher Tom Rosa shows a design for a school to students in Milford High's first class to use advanced architectural software.
(Essdras M Suarez/Globe Staff)
Decades ago, when he attended a high school shop class, Manny Snyderman used a wood lathe to make posts for a tabletop. Just a few weeks ago at Milford High School, the local architect helped a modern-day shop class design a house.
To say the tools available to students have progressed is an understatement.
"The days of drawing things by hand with ink on mylar is a throwback to antiquated means. Technology is where it's at," said Snyderman, president of a Milford architecture firm, Snyderman Associates Inc. "Schools need to make the transformation from wood-shop class to engineering and architecture classes."
While high schools across the state struggle to fund up-to-date engineering programs and instruction to better prepare students for science and technology MCAS tests - required for those graduating in 2010 - Snyderman has donated dozens of hours to help launch Milford High's first class dedicated to highly ad vanced, computer-assisted design software.
The new class, called Honors Computer Aided Design and instructed by Tom Rosa, teaches students how to use a cutting-edge professional software program, DataCAD, used by 250,000 professional architects and engineers, including Snyderman.
"To my knowledge, there are no other secondary schools in the Commonwealth running a successful DataCAD course for students," said Snyderman, who wasn't introduced to computer-aided design until he was a working engineer. "They may have licenses of the program, but not at the level of training we're doing in Milford, where we have an entire class dedicated to it."
Snyderman, who has a son attending Milford High, convinced his friend Mark Madura of Avon, Conn., DataCAD's CEO, to donate the software license to outfit 28 computers in the school's engineering lab. At retail, the license would have cost the school $28,000 - and Madura agreed to update the software once a year. Snyderman gave Rosa instruction in the software, and when the class started in September, he began to help train the students.
"I would like to be an interior designer and I think that it will help," said Milford High School junior LeeAnn Solomon, 17, the only girl in this fall's class. "We are very lucky to have the software."
Over the semester, the class morphed from a lecture hall into a studio.
"It became a help session where we had the students who got it, those who were getting it, and those who needed help," said Snyderman. He said Solomon has a great mind for thinking in 3D and was in that advanced group from the get-go. By this month, the students had learned photo-realistic rendering, animation, construction document creation, and most notably, 3D framing.
The class created "the basic shapes to use to the program, and then we built a school and did plans for a ranch house. I thought building was a fun part of the class," said Solomon.
"Remarkably, Manny has not missed many teaching blocks, volunteering 84 minutes a day of his time to assist in teaching the class," said Milford High's principal, John Brucato. "These were valuable hours of time that he spent directly in the classroom away from his extremely busy consulting firm, truly a dedicated partner to the educational community."
Those graduating a year later may also benefit greatly from the DataCAD class, offered again next fall, especially in light of the state's new requirement for the class of 2010 to pass either the science or technology MCAS tests.
Some area schools, including Waltham High, offer instruction on older computer-aided design software in elective courses that allow students to transition into a vocational program. Needham High School is in the midst of integrating its first engineering class into the science curriculum.
"We have the engineering design class set, but it's a matter of getting the allocation for staffing," said Bob Lockhart, chairman of the Needham High science department. "We'll probably have it up and running by next year."
As for Milford High, in recent years Brucato and Rosa have together created a practical arts department, comprising courses in business education, computer science, visual communications technology, engineering technology, and family and consumer science as an alternative to overcrowded vocational programs. The high school transformed its former wood shop into a fabrications area and computer lab, where the final exam was given to the first DataCAD class Jan. 17.
To wrap up the class, the students attended a meeting of the DataCAD Boston Users Group (a subcommittee of the Boston Society of Architects) at Milford High. Snyderman said he suspects it won't be the last time some of the students use DataCAD.
"The students got to meet with working architects and engineers and were able to display their work. Some members were really impressed. Business cards were shared, and there was some real potential for summer interning," said Snyderman.
"That was the greatest compliment that Tom Rosa and I could get."
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
