The classroom is filled with noises of students building the live chess boards for their final project. A student sands one chess board while three students pour resin on another chessboard. Two students work on the legs to the two chess boards. Everyone is busy working while skills and tech instructor Robert Cote walks around making sure no one gets injured or to answer any questions students may have.

For Woods III, the final project is making live chess boards that will go into both the senior commons and library.

“The live edge chess board we saw online looked really cool, so we decided to do one for the foundation to the library as the Bellevue Schools Foundation,” Cote said.

There is a lot more than just building a live chessboard. When making a big project, it requires planning to be done so when they start building it, it all goes smoothly.

“First we get the idea of the project that we want to do,” senior Daniel Neubauer said. “We research other designs that we could try to base it off of, then draw it out. Then we have to get all our pieces down, finding the length and finding out how much it will cost. That’s when we actually start making and cutting and measuring.”

Planning out how the live chess board is going to be built is important to do before cutting any wood. This helps the students learn the full process of making a big project.

 “When we saw the live edge one online we decided to make it that way. [I] try to make the kids think a little deeper and do a little bit of troubleshooting,” Cote said.

Since there are two live chess boards, Cote had to figure out where to put both of them. For that, he turned to the school librarian.

“For the foundation project, you have to ask someone where it goes,” Cote said. “I asked Mrs. Dunkel if she would appreciate it and they got the Beast Brew and they have kids that just come and congregate and have little group sessions.”

Finding the location for the final product is not the only hard part. Building it can be a challenge of its own.

“The hardest part is keeping everything nice and leaving no gaps in the wood. Keeping it nice and fit,” senior Jorge Nolasco said.

Even with some hard parts with putting the live chess board all together, building the live chess boards is overall a fun experience for the students. It gives the chance for students to show off their work in the school.

“[My favorite parts are] the hands-on work and especially the stuff we put around the school,” Neubauer said. “They start off at lower level techniques in one, two. Then by the end you are using every tool in the shop.”

The students are able to put their skills they learned during the school year to create projects like the live chess boards. In the end they get to show off their work in the school for students and staff members to see.

“My classes are all skills based classes, the project is at the end,” Cote said. “They are graded on the skill that it took to make the project. So the 90 degree, the planning, the sanding, all that are the skills they learned.”

With the skills learned in the class, students can use them for a possible future career. Students, after graduating from high school, can go into trade school to go into carpentry.  

“I want to be a carpenter, it gives me experience,” Nolasco said. “My dad is a carpenter and he inspired me.”