Industrial arts a la Ambacher

paghetti, lasagna, linguine—the ingredients to a fine Italian dinner or parts of a bridge? According to Richard Ambacher ’83, definitely the parts to a bridge.
Ambacher, a technology teacher at Washington Township High School in Gloucester County, guides his students with a unique approach. A visitor to his high school industrial arts shop would be surprised to see the soldering irons and power tools replaced by Macintosh computers, drafting tables and pasta.

Ambacher’s students build bridges out of pasta to illustrate structural integrity, compression and tension. By conducting the course with projects like the pasta bridge, he supplements academic study with problem solving.

Recently, Ambacher was awarded the High School Technology Teacher Excellence Award from the Technology Educators of New Jersey. “This award is a reflection of the technology department and the school district,” he says. “I cannot take all the credit.”
Ambacher and his industrial technology students practice pasta engineering.

from fall ’96