Three classes that focus on Career Technical Education (CTE) at La Grande High School recently teamed up for a sweet, fun project. The CAD (Computer Aided Design), Hospitality and Tourism, and Business classes collaborated on chocolate!
First, the CAD students, led by teacher Doug Gisi, drew up an LHS candy bar in AutoCAD and 3D printed a pattern. They used a Makyu formbox to thermoform or vacuum form a food-safe PETG sheet to the 3D printed pattern. “This brings up great learning opportunities like thinking about the part in the positive, then to negative with the mold, to positive again with the chocolate. The part has to have draft or side taper angles so that the casting can be removed from the mold. The pattern also has to be vented so that the vacuum can act on the entirety of the surface without trapping air,” Gisi said.
After the mold was completed and the sheet was vacuum formed over the pattern, the CAD class students sent them over to the Culinary Class where Teacher Rhonda Calhoon’s head chef Chloe Osterloh, LHS Senior, got to work on making chocolate. She melted and created different flavors of chocolate, including a white chocolate/blue mix for LHS colors, dark chocolate, milk chocolate with pecans and semi-sweet chocolate with coconut. Osterloh used tempered chocolate, which made the process easier, but she spent about six hours making the chocolate bars.
“They turned out well, they had no cracks, which was my biggest fear. I enjoyed the creativity of it because I was basically told to make chocolate bars, so I liked how I could make a mix of them and have different flavors and just have a little fun with it,” Osterloh said.
The final step was that students in the Business Class, whose teacher is Mark Carollo, designed the glossy wrapper and sticker seal to wrap the chocolate bars.
Who got to eat the chocolate? The seven members of the LGSD School Board were given them as gifts for School Board Recognition Month in January.
“I designed this project to show the students how fun, empowering and versatile CAD skills are and present more opportunities to them,” Gisi said.
The candy bars are not currently being sold since this was a first round draft or prototype. Gisi said they will refine it, run some numbers and see if it’s a feasible fundraiser. “We would share the funds raised to keep up with technology and keep presenting opportunities to students. We would buy equipment like the Makyu formbox, multicolor 3D printers, color sticker printers, filament, chocolate, and more.”
