MOSES LAKE — Sometimes, learning physics and chemistry means making a few hash browns.

“(My students) have made, how do I want to say it? Launching devices,” said Christine Armstrong, career and tech education director at the Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center. “They have targets out there and if (the fifth graders) hit the targets they win prizes. And they love it.”

The occasion was Potato Days, a chance for fifth-grade students across the service area to tour CBTECH and see what opportunities are available to them there when they get older. This year CBTECH hosted three groups of 250 fifth graders over the course of three days, to keep the numbers manageable.

The launching devices shot potatoes driven by compressed air. The devices were made by engineering and manufacturing students at CBTECH years ago, although subsequent classes have made some modifications.

There were three of them out Thursday, each with a team of CBTECH students loading it like a cannon, stuffing the potato into the barrel with a ramrod. One device shot a potato into a field where three targets were set up: two stationary wooden ones and one a CBTECH student with a shield and helmet running around to make a moving target. Another, smaller launcher took more precise aim at a small round target. A third fired the potato high in the air through a sharp mesh of blades, cutting them into airborne french fries. The fifth graders stood in the open field under the fries’ trajectory and tried to catch them.

“Maybe we’ll have a bunch of potatoes out here in the spring,” said CBTECH instructor Dave Oliver.

The potato projectiles may have been popular, but they were only part of what was going on. The young students went from one station to the next escorted by CBTECH students in potato costumes, checking out the medical assistant and certified nursing assistant programs, where they learned to do CPR and how to don and remove sterile gloves without contamination, something medical professionals must do frequently. They also stopped off at kitchen, where culinary students served up fresh-made french fries with sauces made from scratch and helped them ice cupcakes. Culinary Instructor Nathan Bathurst gave the visitors some insight into the flavors they were experiencing.

“How do you taste?” Bathurst asked the students, then called on raised hands. “Salty? Perfect. Flavoring? Well, that’s what you’re tasting, but how would you describe it? Flavorful? That’s more of an opinion. Umami, sweet, salty, bitter … Eat the fries, dip the sauce, try and explain what you’re tasting using descriptive words.”

Potato Days is more than a fun field trip, Armstrong explained. The program started in 2014 and has happened every year since, except for a couple of years during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“They’re learning about every program that we have at CBTECH,” she said. “You’d be surprised how many (CBTECH) students say, ‘I wanted to come here since I was in fifth grade for potato day because it looked so fun.”

Trevor Booth who was manning the ramrod for the airborne french fry shooter, was one of those, he said.

“When I was little, my cousins were in engineering (at CBTECH),” Booth said. “On the day I came, they would chase me around with the (radio-controlled) cars they were driving around in engineering and my cousins were like, you gotta do it, dude.”

“Research has shown that fifth grade is a great time to get (children) thinking about the future,” Bathurst said. “So … that’s the motivation behind it, getting them in here and in the building so they can see all the different (programs) and have fun. That’s what it’s about.”

    From left: Fifth-graders Addy Leeder, Leilani Orozco and Kyah Johnson frost cupcakes at CBTECH Potato Days.
  

    Fifth-grade students try to catch airborne french fries at CBTECH Potato Days.
  

    Cira McEachern tried her hand at CPR in a visit to the medical assistant program at Potato Days.
  

    CBTECH students Vivian Orionia, left, and Liliana Portillo show the latest in potato fashion Thursday. The two were guiding fifth-grade students from station to station at Potato Days.
  

    From left: CBTECH students J.T. Ramirez, Derick Smith and Thomas Barnes load a potato launcher for fifth-grade students to test their long-range accuracy with at CBTECH Potato Days on Thursday.