A group of students in Chilliwack is aiming for top honours at a national high school welding competition.
The students in the metal shop class at GW Graham Secondary School created the Bear-B-Q.
It tips the scales at more than 4,000 pounds (or 1,800 kilograms).
It has eight burners and takes a forklift to move.
Its fur is made up of 5,000 pieces of rusted metal.
Brad Bootsma, the metal shop teacher at the school, and also a former student, said it all started when they won a grant from the Canadian Welding Bureau to outfit their metal shop. They were then challenged to compete in the Forged by Youth awards where they would build a project and compete against other schools.
“So my students decided to do a grizzly bear and I decided to throw another wrench at them and say ‘hey, let’s make it into a barbecue that our school can use’,” Bootsma said.
The grizzly bear is the school’s mascot.
Bootsma said the group would work during class, after school and on weekends to get the project finished.
“It went above and beyond my expectations, I’m super proud of the kids,” he said. “They took everything I kept throwing at them and ran with it. The kids are the true stars behind this, I am just the teacher that gave them the tools.”
He said about 20 kids, mostly from Grades 11 and 12, worked on the project and he estimated it took about 5,000 hours to complete.
The bear will now be used for school barbecues and event such as the Terry Fox Run next year.
“I say let’s build your dreams, providing no weapons,” Bootsma joked. “I am beyond proud, there’s no words for it. The dedication they had, the skill that they put into it and just the teamwork.”
Nathan MacNeil, head engineer and designer of the project and Grade 11 student, said as the bear came together they just wanted to add more and more design elements.
“I’m definitely going to need a bigger laptop if I’m going to do this again because it took forever to open the file,” he joked. “Everything is very custom on this thing.”
MacNeil said he was super proud to be a part of this project and the bear is much bigger than he could ever have imagined.
“It was very fun to be part of a school project this big.”
The class will find out if they have won the competition in September. Last year’s winner was a fully functional Go-Kart.
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