Winona Post: High School students build RC cars at Trade & Tech Camp

Photos and story by Katryn Conlin
July 23, 2024

Brightly painted race cars flashed around the track as the drivers vied for prime position in the race for the finish line. Some cars crashed or spun out of control while others slowed down and stayed on course. 

In only three short days, a group of high school students had painted the cars, assembled them, and prepared them for race day. They were all participants in Minnesota State College Southeast's Camp Trade & Technology, which was held at the end of June.

How did they build the race cars so quickly? It helped that these were scale model, radio controlled race cars, measuring around 20 inches long.

"The theme of this year's Camp T&T was RC Car components, which allowed high school students to explore several different trades programs," said Calvin Clemons, Director of Trade and Technology at Minnesota State College Southeast. 

On June 25, 26, and 27, the students were on campus at Southeast in Winona in the auto body, automotive technology, CNC machine tool, electronics, and welding labs. Classes were taught by college faculty members. 

"The students learned how to paint their own custom car body, machine and 3D-print parts, perform basic car repairs and upgrades, hand solder electronic parts on circuit cards, and MIG weld materials," Calvin Clemons added. 

The camp began on Tuesday with prepping and painting the car bodies in the auto body collision technology spray booths. Students selected paint and sprayed their cars with custom colors, adding finishing touches with decals and racing stripes.

By Wednesday morning, the students were already attaching motors and car bodies to the kit frameworks, which included the chassis and wheels. Automotive technology instructor Adam Pehler circulated among the students, who worked at long tables set up in the auto tech lab.

Tyson Bell from Island City RC stopped by the camp to talk with the students and explain some aspects of assembly and racing.

Before lunch, the students took the race cars out onto a flat driveway behind the college's Transportation Building for test drives.

Jerry Benedict, a teacher from Winona Senior High School, was helping with the camp. Two at a time, the cars raced up and down the driveway. "One, two, three, go!" he called out to get each pair of RC cars moving. 

"Slow down! Slow down!" he cried as the cars came zooming back toward the students.

The final day of camp started with hands-on experience in the college welding lab, before the entire crew headed out to Trails End Speedway at Trails End Bar and Grill in Minnesota City. Set up as a large dirt oval, the race track is designed for local hobbyists to run their RC race cars.

"Racing the cars at Trails End was definitely a camp highlight," said Calvin Clemons. 

Both Jerry Benedict and Calvin Clemons had a lot of positive feedback about the Camp T&T experience from the participants and their parents.

"It was an amazing experience for the students that came. I have only heard positive comments about the camp," said Jerry Benedict.

"Several of the high school students told me that this was their favorite camp, since it was both fun and educational, and that they planned to take courses at the college in the future," said Calvin Clemons, adding, "We truly appreciate all the support we got this year from Island City RC and Trails End Restaurant to make this such a special event!"

Photo captions

Above: Tyler Steinke worked on his RC race car in the automotive tech lab at the college.
Below: Devin Filzen attached the motor to the chassis of his RC race car in the Automotive Technology lab at Minnesota State College Southeast.