MOSES LAKE — The fifth graders counted it down.

“Four, three, two,” they chanted — but the countdown was put on hold. 

The French fry launcher had to build up sufficient pressure. Once it did, the fifth graders were free to resume the countdown, with the help of a Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center student.

“Three, two, one,” the fifth graders chanted.

The skills center students pulled the lever, the raw potato they had loaded into the launcher shot from the tube and raw fries flew high in the air as fifth graders scrambled to catch them.

Potato Days are back.

Potato Days brought fifth graders from throughout the Moses Lake School District to the skills center on Wednesday and Thursday.  Chad Utter, dean of students at the skills center, said Potato Days is designed to start acquainting children with some of their options after they get out of school. 

“They’re to the age where they’re starting to understand a little bit of what they want to do,” Utter said. “So it’s a good chance (for) them to go through our building and see what we offer, see what some of their options are when they get to high school.” 

It’s put on with the help of the Washington Potato Commission, Utter said, which provides some monetary support. And potatoes.

Potato Days also are a way to highlight the importance of potatoes to Grant County’s economy, Utter said. The fifth graders get potato facts while potatoes are being launched, turned into video games and used as an ingredient in an exfoliant. 

The potato-based skin cleanser was the work of the cosmetology class. It is, students said, a mix of potato starch and sugar.

“The potatoes are to lighten the skin and the sugar is to help exfoliate the skin,” explained Laela Herrera. “You can put a scent in it if you want.”

There’s some math involved — ratios and all that — but it’s mostly just experience.

“It’s pretty much all art,” Hererra said. 

The potato launcher out back of the advanced manufacturing classroom used the same principles of compressed air as the french fry launcher. Fifth graders lined it up, trying to get the best shot at the target, and pulled the launch lever. 

Engineering instructor Aaron Hopkins said the engineering class potato launcher was built under pressure of a deadline, since they only decided what to build about two weeks ago. Students said it required some design work, because they made it from scratch. The students opted for PVC pipe and a longer barrel, but it too uses a compressed air system, they said. The engineering class did design a device that could be elevated, and some of the potatoes flew pretty far downrange. 

The JR Simplot company brought its french fry truck, and the culinary class used the fries as part of a taste test, and a lesson in biology.

“When you describe food, what descriptive words do you use?” asked culinary instructor Nathan Bathurst. 

A fifth grader suggested the word tasty.

“Tasty. That’s — kind of an opinion,” Bathurst said.

Other fifth graders offered words like salty or sour, sweet or bitter. Bathurst pointed to a drawing of the tongue on the board. 

“That is a map of your tongue,” he said. 

The culinary class had prepared various french fry dipping sauces and Bathurst asked the kids to describe them, using those specific words.

The video game programming class built games with potatoes as characters and the fire science class talked about fire safety in agriculture.

Utter said one of the students in his advanced manufacturing class still has a memento made on the 3D printer during a Potato Day gone by. 

“He (said), ‘I still have it on my shelf.’ So he still remembered fifth grade Potato Day,” Utter said. 

Cheryl Schweizer may be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.

    Skills center students lead the countdown to launching french fries during Potato Days.
  

    Fifth graders test the dipping sauces prepared by Skills Center culinary students.
  

    Fifth graders try to catch fries launched by CB Tech students.
  

    Cosmetology students use a potato-based exfoliant to give fifth graders a lesson in skin care.
  

    A fifth grader lines up his shot before pulling the lever on the potato launcher.