Industrial Club Makes Handmade Bricks
Intermediate's Industrial Academic Club used the recent hybrid-on-campus days to create handmade bricks from the soil of The Lab School campus.
In this region, 19th century bricks were typically made on site for building projects using the local soil. Fired in kilns to 2000 degrees, bricks require the proper mix of clay, silt and sand to become strong. Luckily, the soil here in the Lab garden is close enough for making a proper brick.
The Club members first tested the soil and calculated the clay percentages and then got on with learning how to make bricks.
Using traditional muscle-powered methods, the team of 22 workers produced 36 bricks in a week. By comparison, a modern industrial brick factory can produce 800,000 bricks in a single day with only seven workers monitoring the automated machines.
Once dry, the Club will fire their bricks on the ceramic kilns before displaying them this winter.
