A shop built for scares

The Society of Manufacturing Engineers club remodels their workshop into "Horror Shop" for Halloween

AARON ESTRADA Reporter @AirOnNews

Severed body parts, machines covered in cobwebs and a bucket of blood are all features one would hope to avoid in a machine workshop.

The Society of Manufacturing Engineers club worked day and night to decorate and incorporate their machines to transform their workshop to a three-day donationbased haunted maze they dubbed “Horror Shop” to fundraise for their club, as explained by SME Advisor Bryce Garter.

“The shop at night is kind of creepy,” Garter said. “We were brainstorming a fundraising opportunity and it being Halloween season, the group kind of elected to convert the shop.”

Using machines for terrifying demonstrations and to create a pathway through the shop, materials to blackout the windows and well placed decorations, the SME used their skills and elbow grease to give Pierce some real scares.

Garter also explained that while the scares were real, so were the safety precautions necessary when dealing with a room full of dangerous machinery.

“Shop safety is number one,” Garter said. “We issue safety glasses and we will observe the rules of shop safety. Only trained personnel will be operating the machines and power for many of the machines will be cut at the main breaker so that the machine can't be activated.”

Welding Club representative Travis Gonzales took time from his pursuit of a Welding Certificate to partake in the Horror Shop and encouraged others to experience it as well.

“It was extremely scary, blood everywhere, I would highly recommend it,” Gonzales said. “If you want to be scared out of your mind, check it out.”

While he enjoyed the maze overall, there were a few things about the maze that stuck out to Gonzales.

“Rotating heads on a lathe machine, a guy doing some grinding that was pretty cool.”