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Chester County Press

Video produced by Oxford students wins award

04/26/2016 01:05PM ● By Steven Hoffman

A team of Oxford Area High School students won an award in the Chester County Intermediate Unit's “What's So Cool About Manufacturing?” video contest at an event that was sponsored by the Manufacturing Alliance of Chester and Delaware Counties, on April 6.

The Oxford students who worked on the project— ninth-graders Noah Hewes, Jacob Hewes, Sarah Bartlett, Abby Boohar, and Michael Walling—earned the Viewer's Choice Award for 2016 for their two-and-a-half-minute video.

The students visited Aerzen USA in Coatesville to explore what is so cool about manufacturing. The company, which was founded in 1983, manufactures positive displacement blowers, turbo blowers, screw compressors, and vacuum pumps. Aerzen USA employs approximately 70 people at its 40,000-square-foot facility.

The purpose of the video was for students to explore how a modern manufacturing facility operates, and the Oxford students interviewed six or seven different employees with Aerzen USA in preparation to make the video. They asked the workers about their jobs and shot footage of the manufacturing facility on a GoPro camera.

The students learned that manufacturing has changed considerably over the years, and companies now rely a lot on computers and technology to produce their projects.

Noah Hewes explained that they were also trying to show that manufacturing facilities can be very clean and have operations that are environmentally friendly.

The students also wanted to raise awareness that there are a lot of manufacturing jobs available, and they are often good-paying jobs. They compiled more than 20 minutes of footage during the visit to Aerzen USA.

Chris Pierdomenico, a television/video teacher at the high school, helped the students edit the video down to the limit of two and a half minutes.

“You really had to make sure that you used your best footage,” Noah Hewes.

All five students are in Trevor Haney’s Project Lead The Way class. Haney selected students who would put a lot of effort into the project.

“I had to find a group of students who would show dedication and work hard to make a good video,” Haney explained. “They put in a lot of time on this. They would stay after school to work on this video until 5 or 6 o'clock. It was a fun experience. I think the students enjoyed it.”

As proud as the school’s administrators and teachers were of the group, the students were equally excited about winning the award.

“We were ecstatic,” Jacob Hewes said.