Voting opening for junior high manufacturing video contest
The members of Butler Intermediate High School’s girls video team did not realize how many products Oberg Industries had a hand in making, since it is a contract manufacturer that doesn’t put its name on its output.
The team of five eighth graders is highlighting the company in a video it made for the “What’s So Cool About Manufacturing” contest, which shows some of the items made by Oberg and the people who make them.
“That’s one of the things we took away from going to all three facilities because even though they were the same company, they all did different things,” Adelynn Bushre said. “There was stamp pressing that goes into cans we drink every day, razors and stuff, and then there was a medical building where they make implants for all sorts of stuff.”
Voting is now open for the contest, and the videos made by the two Butler Intermediate High School teams — a boys team of five and a girls team of five — are in the running for the voters’ choice award. Voting and the videos are online at whatssocool.org.
While the girls visited Oberg Industries, the boys’ team visited JSP International, and each team put together a video about what each company does and how their manufacturing affects life in Butler County. Breit Cochran, the teacher who coordinated the projects, said the groups took initial tours of the companies’ facilities, then went back to capture video and get interviews with workers so they could put together the presentations.
“They did an amazing amount of work,” Cochran said.
The theme of the girls team was, “How does manufacturing affect our daily lives?” Adelynn said the team was able to see and show ways manufacturing touched everyday life through the visits to each of Oberg’s facilities.
“We wanted to get someone from every job area because there could be people working on the floor, in offices as managers,” Natalie Baldauf said. “Then there was people who were working trying to recruit people, there was a ton of different jobs.”
The boys team visited JSP in the fall, and got three or four hours of video, which they had to cut down to under three minutes to tell the company’s story of manufacturing.
Lucas Szul said JSP International manufactures plastic products, which are used in many products the students didn’t even think about.
“We didn’t know that when we’re playing soccer or football, that manufacturing went into that,” Lucas said.
Noah Schooley said he and the team are proud of the video they put together with the footage they collected. The teams used video editing software to assemble the videos, which each team said was a good lesson that came from the projects.
“We used two student narrations, so I did it and then Lucas did it,” Noah said. “I think it was a pretty good video overall.”
The students who participated in the program are eighth-graders Natalie Baldauf, Garrett Beveridge, Marshall Bish, Adelynn Bushre, Charlotte Doverspike, Beatrix Medved, Noah Schooley, Landon Slear, Lucas Szul and Charlotte Weyandt.
The videos of both Butler Intermediate High School teams are available under the Pittsburgh Central category of the 2025 contest tab at whatssocool.org. Voting is open from Monday, March 17, to Friday, March 21.
