St. Albert students will put their trades to the test this month as they participate in Alberta’s first-ever online Skills competition.
Up to 522 high school students across Alberta are expected to bake cakes, carve wood and paint cars these next two weeks as the 2020 Skills Alberta Virtual Competition gets underway.
Many of those students were scheduled to take part in the in-person provincial Skills tournament at the Edmonton Expo Centre May 6 to 7 prior to its cancellation due to the coronavirus. The annual event usually sees 560 students compete in trades-related challenges for medals, scholarships and a shot at nationals.
Skills Canada Alberta announced April 14 it would hold an online replacement for the in-person event to give students a chance to show their talents, said spokesperson Victoria Anderson.
“We want them to know their accomplishments are still worth something and that they should be very proud of them, especially in the current environment,” Anderson said.
This event – the first all-virtual competition ever held by Skills Canada Alberta – will feature 23 of the 33 competitions usually held at provincials and is not open to post-secondary competitors, Anderson said. There will be medals at the end, but no scholarships, and winners will not advance to nationals.
Contests have also been modified to work online, Anderson said. Instead of in-person scrutiny by judges at the Expo Centre, competitors will work from home and send judges photos and videos of their work by May 15. Competitors will often have several days instead of hours to complete their tasks in order to accommodate student schedules.
St. Albert skills
Anderson said about 300 students had signed up for the event as of May 4, some of whom were from St. Albert.
St. Albert Catholic High student Eric Montpetit said his task in cabinet making was to carve a set of nesting shadow boxes using only hand tools. A shadow box is something you’d normally use to display photos, he explained, and is quite different from the piston box he’d been training to make at Skills.
Montpetit said it would be a challenge to make the box, as he’d be working out of his garage instead of a fully equipped wood shop and wouldn’t have access to power tools. He would also have to borrow some saws and chisels from his shop class teacher.
“It’s going to be really weird to see how it works,” he said of the contest.
Fellow SACHS student Alex Seibel said she was saddened when the regular Skills contest was cancelled, as she had been training for the hairstyling competition since September. She said this virtual event is a great idea.
“It gives everyone an opportunity to use the skills they have and that they have been training for so long.”
Whereas she’d normally have to complete four haircuts and styling jobs in a few hours, Seibel said her task in the virtual contest was to make a 10-minute video that could teach an amateur how to style their hair at home.
“For me, I’m used to (having) all my hair supplies,” she said, so it would be challenging to come up with a technique someone could use with limited tools.
Seibel said she planned to demonstrate a simple, everyday hairstyle using some of the mannequin heads she had at home, and to practise her technique several times before letting the cameras roll.
“I feel I’m a pretty good teacher,” she said, so she is confident in her chances in the contest.
Competition registration closes May 15. The awards ceremony, along with a highlight reel of student entries, will be live-streamed at skillsalberta.com at 6:30 p.m. on May 29.
