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SPRINGFIELD - It was hard to figure who was more delighted -the 15-year-old boy who had just learned to communicate over laser waves or the academics and business leaders watching him.
Adam Shibley, 15, a freshman from Westfield High School, was explaining how his voice was translated from sound waves into light waves in an amplifier, beamed across the room, then turned back into sound waves that could be heard as his voice through, a receiver across the room.
"It's amazing," Shibley said. "I was really interested that you could do something so simply that is so complex."
He was speaking during a demonstration last week at the final "Star Wars Technologies" class as part of the College for Kids program at Springfield Technical Community College.
For 17 years, the community college has offered all sorts of summer enrichment courses for elementary, middle and high school students, but this course was designed with the needs of the high technology job market in mind.
At a STCC conference on emerging technologies last January, business and education leaders came to the conclusion that the state's biggest single economic need is a trained work force for the technological jobs of the next few decades.
Observing Shibley and his classmates work with fiber optics and laser beams, STCC President Andrew M. Scibelli said, "This is precisely what needs to happen for us to provide the work force in an area where the demand is high and the supply is low."
After the January conference, STCC joined with Westfield State College and some local, businesses and public school systems to develop courses and-partnerships to entice young people into the high technology field, and the "Star Wars Technologies" was one of the first examples.
Big Y foods Inc. funded scholarships for some of the 15 students in this class and STCC paid for the rest. The students come from Springfield, Southwick and Westfield.
"This is a perfect tie-in for us, because education is such a large part of what Big Y believes in, and kids are our future," said Big Y vice president John Sarno, a member of the sponsorship task force for Teachers of Technology.
For Shibley, building the components to make the laser communications work and for building some sirens was the best part of this two-week course.
He brought home his sirens and picked up some additional switches from an electronics store so he could warp the sounds produced by the sirens.
"I love being able to do these things on my own, not just follow the kit," Shibley said.
Taking radios and other electronic equipment apart then putting them back together has long been a hobby for Shibley, but he was sometimes stymied by the mathematics needed for the tasks.
David Moquin, who taught part of the "Star Wars Technologies" course, offered some tricks to help proceed with the math, Shibley said.
"It's more interesting now that I can understand it," Shibley said.
James V. Masi, the director of STCC's National Center for Telecommunications Technologies, taught part of the StarWars class and said it was designed to take the mystery out of technology.
"There is no reason these kids can't learn this: The mathematical explanations might be a few years away, but they have done it hands-on, so they will never forget it," Masi said.
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