The region's foremost construction experts admired aparticularly special booth recently at the Atlantic BuildersConvention - unique for both the materials used and the hands thatmade it.
Those hands belonged to the crowd of Atlantic County Instituteof Technology students standing underneath the wooden frame,wearing black shirts and badges, who built the structure for theEvesham Township-based building supply company iLevel.
The company teamed up with the students after one of itsspecialists, C.J. Roberts, met ACIT professor Fred Drawdy at aHabitat for Humanity project his students were working on.
The two talked and agreed to a win-win situation: iLevel wouldlet Drawdy's students work with some of its most advanced materialsfor free, if in turn they helped cut and construct a booth theycould use for the massive gathering at the Atlantic City ConventionCenter.
"We just shipped them a bunch of plans and materials and said,'OK guys, have at it,'" Roberts said.
That made for a one-of-a-kind learning experience for thestudents, who instantly noticed a difference using the engineered,composite material over traditional wood products.
Daniel Santiago, 18, of Hamilton Township's Mizpah section, saidworking with the new materials was interesting.
"I thought it was a lot lighter than regular lumber," he said."And it's good for recycling reasons, because they're using choppedup wood and putting it back together."
The senior, who plans to join the National Guard, said doing thework for iLevel was an honor for him and his fellow students. "Itwas a good experience," he said.
Roberts explained that for as long as iLevel has been attendingthe massive event, it has built booths to present products and thenbasically thrown them out afterward. But the booth the studentsmade this year was disassembled and will be stored for comingyears.
"If no one told you yet, they went together awesome," iLevelspecialist John Stewart told Drawdy as they stood next to thebooth.
"We started putting it together, and we were like, 'OK, this ispretty cool,'" he said and laughed.
It took the students about a week to plan the project andanother week and a half to build the structure, which they finishedabout the end of last month.
When it was reassembled in the center, it immediately juttedabove many of the other booths. Sitting near the far corner, itspitched beams stuck up toward iLevel banners hanging from theceiling.
"These big companies try to outdo each other," Drawdy said, andthis year they relied on the ACIT students to do that for them.
The students said they not only enjoyed the experience, butliked spending the day out of class and at the convention, lookingat some of the most advanced materials and techniques and gatheringup pamphlets and information sheets.
Their next project is finishing up a Habitat for Humanityproject, Drawdy said as he herded the students to the bus back toMays Landing.
"Every community needs a school like Fred's and his students',"Roberts said. "Look at all the good they're doing."
Contact Lee Procida:
609-457-8707
LProcida@pressofac.com