High School students at Capital Area Career Center in Springfield have the chance to take classes with a University of Illinois Springfield instructor to learn about rapid prototyping.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) - High School students at Capital Area Career Center in Springfield have the chance to take classes with a University of Illinois Springfield instructor to learn about rapid prototyping.

The class is taught by UIS Computer Science Instructor Josh Smith, who uses advanced equipment like 3D printers and CNC machines to show students how the engineering process works. 

"I wanted to give them a sampling of a bunch of different fields so they can go into software engineering, cybersecurity, engineering, mechanical, electrical, plastics engineering and realistically, anywhere from there, wherever their passions take," Smith said.

"With rapid prototyping, that's coming up with the design of something and instead of sending off the design to some company that has it made, we're making it here in the classroom," Smith continued. 

In the class, students learn everything from programming to mechanical engineering. The students say the variety is part of what draws their interest. 

"We did an intro to programming in the Java language and then, around the end of that semester, we went into learning 3D modeling with Onshape," said Harper Sawyer, one of the students. "For the last semester of the year, we did the first robotics competition and designed a robot." 

Many students in the class say they have dreams of pursuing a STEM-based career in the future, especially in the Information Technology or Computer Science Fields. Classes like these are helpful to expose students to technology and programs they don't have at their school. 

"I would never have this opportunity at my home school in Auburn," said Beckham Hudson, a student at CACC. "I don't feel like I could get it anywhere else besides here at CACC." 

CACC offers a variety of classes for high school students and adults. For more information, you can check out their website.

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