A VISION FOR THE AGES
Mentors receive continuous learning points and time away from work while mentoring, but, she said, most of the time it’s simply volunteer. “During the FRC build and competition season, mentors can typically work with a team for four to five hours per night every night of the week and eight-plus hours a day on weekends for 10-plus straight weeks,” she said. “It’s intense!”
REAL WORLD PROBLEMS All the intensity is for a worthwhile cause when it comes to equipping kids for real-life situations. According to Hofmann, “Students so desperately need to accumulate life skills with hands- on tools and machinery, and they love working with real world challenges such as the ones FIRST Competitions offer.”
Hofmann’s words were put into action in 2020. At the height of the pandemic when doctors, nurses and staff at area hospi- tals were scrambling for masks, Aperture 3142 students got a
firsthand look at how the technology skills they’ve acquired can be of significant value in the real world.
“Te lessons of COVID showed us how important making our own PPE [personal protective equipment] was,” Hofmann said. Protective equipment was scarce, but desperately needed at ground zero health care facilities like Newark University Hospital, where his son Justin was a third-year physician. Rather than sit around feeling helpless, Hofmann fired up a 3D printer in his basement, and two additional 3D printers at Newton High School, and designed a 9-by-9 inch clear plastic, reusable face shield prototype for area hospitals. Ten, with the help of 50 students, teachers, his family and other business networking partners who provided the manpower and additional 3D printing machines, he was able to produce 5,000 face shields that health care professionals and first responders could use to safely treat patients.
“My wife, Mandy, and our daughter, Samantha, were in this trench night and day with me during those first 10 weeks,” he said. “Working from our basement, which was converted into a 3D printing farm and PPE distribution center. It was fast and furious, but we know we helped save lives.”
Just a few months before, Hofmann had attended a beneficial Picatinny-hosted STEM workshop that provided 3D printer train- ing to New Jersey educators with instruction on how to properly set up, operate and maintain printers; use computer-aided design software; and access online resources to create 3D-printed proj- ects and lessons that may be included in the classroom. Schools were housing 3D printers, but they came without instruction, and teachers had no idea how to use them. Te workshop was also an opportunity to network with other teachers, which laid the foun- dation for Hofmann’s teacher and student recruitment initiative.
“Te impact that training event had on all of us definitely helped prepare us for what unfolded during those early pandemic days,” he said. “Some of those teachers who I had already known from
TEAM SPIRIT
Dominic Estanislao, center, and the Mechanical Mustangs drive team proudly display their winning trophy and banner from the FIRST Mid-Atlantic District Championship, held April 6-8, 2023, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. (Photo courtesy of Dominic Estanislao and FIRST Mid-Atlantic)
“As a student you build robots, but as a mentor you build people.”
78 Army AL&T Magazine Winter 2024
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