CBS Colorado honors high school students who are excelling in science, technology, engineering, and math, STEM. The Future Leaders Award comes with $1,000 and a profile on CBS News Colorado.
The latest Future Leaders winner is Danny Maddox, a senior at Grandview High School.
“On an actual machine, we take the same part that we designed on the computer and then we actually program the machine to cut it out of a solid piece of material,” Maddox explained to First Alert Chief Meteorologist Dave Aguilera.
At the Cherry Creek Innovation Campus, Maddox is in his second year of learning CNC, computer numerical control, an automated manufacturing process. He creates a design on the computer, then the computer controls a machine to cut out his design.
“I really like using machines because just watching it from a solid piece of metal that is just a cube and turn it into something very complex…that is pretty satisfying,” Maddox said.
In class, he practices making parts for aerospace craft, but last year, he was a part of a bigger project.
“In September of last year, my teacher proposed to make a bell for the Denver Broncos,” Maddox said.
He worked with other students to design a model for the bell.
“I eventually just designed it on the computer and made parts for it,” Maddox recalled.
The infrastructure students wellded all the parts together.
“The biggest challenge was just the trigonometry aspect because there’s a lot of calculations and math that you have to do to make sure that you want these flat pieces to cut out and then you want to actually assemble it into a 3D part,” Maddox said.
Maddox was part of the group taht unveiled the bell at a Broncos Monday Night Football Game last November.
“The bell is a little tiny bell that cancer patients get to ring when they beat cancer.”
“So what do you want to do for your career?” asked Aguilera.
“I do plan on going into engineering and I did get into a school for aerospace engineering,” he said.
Maddox will continue to pursue his passion of creating precision part using advanced technology.
LINK: Nominate a Future Leaders candidate
You can nominate a high school student excelling in STEM. Just go to the Future Leaders section of Pacthman.coand fill out the nomination form.