Robotics Team Gets Inside Look at Entwistle Company

Members of the Rivers Robotics team were given a special opportunity back on May 21 when they visited The Entwistle Company in Hudson, Mass. The students were given a tour of the manufacturing facility by Entwistle’s President Cary Corkin ’69.

The students were accompanied by Math/Science teacher and Robotics team coach Adam Ganderson.

 

“Mr. Corkin met us at the door and we sat down for maybe two minutes to hear about the company before he asked if we wanted to go look around,” Ganderson said. “Much of what they do is very similar to what we do with the robotics challenges – they compete against other companies with the best design gaining the contract from the military.”

 

With a host of large military contracts, most of the products Entwistle makes are on a much larger scale than what the team works with every day in the robotics lab. As part of one project they were working on, engineers had built a replica of the outside of an aircraft carrier that would house a life raft deployer.

 

“What stood out the most to me was the scale they were able to work on,” said Spencer Graves ’14. “To build an aircraft carrier but still pay attention to the smallest of details was very impressive.”

 

The facility houses every aspect of the design process from engineers who work on developing designs, to machinists who create the materials for executing the design, to military inspectors who make sure the design fits the bill for the contract. The opportunity for students to see that process play out in front of them was extremely valuable and opened their eyes to the opportunities offered by companies like Entwistle.

 

“The reason why many of us go to professional sporting events is because seeing anything done really well is beautiful,” Ganderson said. “We got to walk around a really well-designed, really-well run and really-well funded shop and watch things being done well. It’s really exciting.”