Mahanoy Area students’ manufacturing video advances to statewide competition this week

MAHANOY CITY — A group of seventh and eighth graders from Mahanoy Area Junior/Senior High School were recognized for a video they created highlighting manufacturing and will now compete on the statewide level.

The students — McKendra Coll, Victoria Davis, Alexandra Kachelries, Caylee Pytko, Mason Robb, Parker Tacelosky and Rialle Wehnke — put their videography skills to the test, highlighting Hometown-based manufacturer EMD Electronics in the “What’s So Cool About Manufacturing” video contest for students in Schuylkill and Berks counties.

At the Berks-Schuylkill event April 15 in Reading, the team was presented the Viewers Choice award, for the video with the most votes.

“EMD showed us around, and we interviewed some people on what they make, what they do in the labs and everything,” said Parker, who helped edit the video.

Rialle said making the video was fun, although she found the editing difficult because she had to use Premiere Pro software, which she was not familiar with.

“I normally use the kind of softwares that this entire contest did not allow, like CapCut,” she said. “I got too used to it that I got completely confused.”

The 2.5-minute video, which is on the contest’s website, whatssocool.org, shows footage and interview clips filmed on-site at EMD Electronics, which manufactures specialty gases, a key component in producing microchips and semiconductors.

The project was overseen by math teacher Amanda Harris and STEM teacher Suzanne Mayberry.

Harris said that editing the footage was challenging.

“Narrowing down all the footage and picking what you need, and then going through and putting everything together — that takes a long time,” she said.

While 26 schools participated in the Berks Schuylkill Contest, Mahanoy Area and D.H.H. Lengel Middle School in Pottsville were the only schools from Schuylkill County to advance to the state event, which will be held Wednesday at the Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts in Harrisburg.

The Mahanoy Area team said it was interesting to see all the facilities and equipment used at EMD Electronics.

“Walking into the lab,” Harris said, “was kind of like a sci-fi experience. … Behind the glass, they have little canisters, and tubes going here, there and everywhere. It was such a scientific, clean space that you’re not used to seeing in any kind of everyday life.”

Rialle, who has been attending Mahanoy Area since second grade, said she enjoys the school’s inclusion of technology-related activities, rather than just sports. She plans to go to an electronic camp this summer, where she’ll spend a week on a college campus engaged in educational activities.

“I’m actually glad there are places where you can actually make a really good success in life,” she said, “and not having to be, like, an NBA player.”

Harris agreed that the video program benefits those STEM-related opportunities.

“(Before) kids even begin to think about manufacturing, but to see it and go through its processes and everything, and get involved in that,” Harris said, “it gets the awareness out that college isn’t the only option, and going straight into the workforce is a thing.”

Mahanoy Area has been participating in the Manufacturers Resource Center contest since it was launched in 2017 and advanced to the state competition in 2018.

EMD, which has operated near Hometown for about 50 years and was formerly known as Air Products, is a subsidiary of German multinational health care company Merck KGaA.

Gov. Josh Shapiro visited the facility last year, touting a $300 million, 96,500-square-foot expansion near EMD’s headquarters that would make the company the largest manufacturer of its kind in the world.