Our new wildcat is ready to roar at Sunday's Open House, 1-4 p.m.
There’s a big new cat on campus thanks to Metal Fabrication students. They have spent the past year building a giant wildcat mascot that will be installed outside overlooking our new turf athletic field. It stands seven-feet tall, 18-feet long and is one-foot wide. It is currently stationed in the lobby where it is on display for Sunday’s Open House.
“The school wanted a mascot and metal fab came up with a proposal,” said Senior A.J. Espinal of Haverhill. “It’s a big accomplishment. To know we were the ones to complete this and it will be on school grounds forever makes me feel happy because it will be seen everyday.” All sophomores, juniors and seniors in the program participated in the project with Instructors Chris Gerber and Steve Palmer.
The cat’s design was completed in Autocad and its blueprints were fed into a Vicon plasma cutter that created the metal pieces used to put it together. Students used a power shear to cut the edges and formed the metal in rollers and a brake machine. The pieces of metal were then tacked together with welding tacks, and a skeleton framework was built inside the cat to keep it from buckling.
“The most challenging parts were when we had to fill in the gaps of metal,” said Sophomore Racheal Galicia of Haverhill. “And the positions we had to be in to weld especially the mouth and teeth.”
“Welding the paws to the legs was also tough because there were a lot of curves,” said A.J. “We learned how welding is not always done standing up, and it’s not easy when there are tough spots. We learned how to weld in different positions like lying down, and over our heads.” When the welding was done, students had to smooth out the entire structure with grinders.
“It showed the students what it takes to do big projects from start to finish,” said Mr. Palmer. “Some of our kids are going to be building skyscrapers in the future.”
The cat has a large maroon and gold WT logo on its body and gold eyes. It will eventually be placed on a concrete slab near the bleachers overlooking the field. Over time, the metal will rust and turn a uniform light brown.
“I’m proud we got it done and everyone will enjoy it,” said Racheal. Some students stayed after school to work on it to be sure it was finished for Open House. “It took hard work and teamwork. Without that we wouldn’t be close to finishing it.”
