Excavators, bulldozers and dump trucks were running to and fro at Whittier Elementary School on Sept. 14 as they moved materials from one place to another.

No, a major construction project was not underway. But the materials being transported from place to place might have been of more value than rebar or asphalt, at least if you were a student. Students in third through fifth grade were busy using the equipment to move a commodity important to them — candy — from one end of a carpeted area to another.

The activity was brought to the school by Brysn Hunt, Workforce Development manager for the Association of Oklahoma General Contractors. Called the RC Equipment Challenge, students were tasked with using remote control toy excavators, dump trucks and bulldozers to snag some candy out of a box, load it into the back of a dump truck, drive it across the carpet and dump it out. From there a bulldozer had to move the candy a certain distance. The team with the fastest time was declared the winner and rewarded with an extra piece of candy.

Hunt said the activity closely resembles what happens at an actual job site during construction of roads and bridges.

“An excavator picks up the materials from the shop and loads them onto a dump truck, which takes it to a work site and the dozer pushes it around,” Hunt told the students.

After a brief explanation of how to use the remote controls, students were divided into teams of three to see who could move the candy to where it needed to go.

A team composed of Briar Whish, Daisy Long and Liam Hernandez were the first to give it a try. Whish was the bulldozer driver, who said the dozer was hard to drive.

“It was kinda hard to turn and go straight. I kept forgetting the controls,” Whish said. Whish, who said she doesn’t play video games very often, said the task reminded her of playing Minecraft.

“It was pretty fun, to be honest,” she said. “I kept messing up the controls, and we were the first group to go.”

Daisy Long volunteered to operate the excavator, which picked up the candy.

“I wanted it because it meant you could get all the candy,” she said. “I think I picked up three pieces of candy.”

Just because three pieces of candy were clamped into the jaws of the excavator didn’t mean all the candy made it into the back of the dump truck. Sometimes pieces dropped out of the excavator’s claws or pinged off the bed of the dump truck as it was being loaded.

“Picking up the candy was easy,” Long said. “Figuring out the controls was hard. I’m not used to using a controller.”

Liam Hernandez’s job was to use the bulldozer to push the candy off the rug.

“The hard part was turning because I had never played with a controller like that,” he said. While he said driving the toy was fun, he said he would not like to drive a bulldozer for real. “I wouldn’t be able to work it that good.”

What did he enjoy most about the activity?

“The end. We got candy in return,” Hernandez said.

Zoraya Granados drove the bulldozer for another team and she, too, said the hard part was using the controller.

“It was really fun; I liked it,” Granados said. “I learned how they make roads. It looked really hard in real life.”

Antonio Carrillo also drove the dump truck for his team, which had the fastest time for awhile. Carrillo explained that he was familiar with some of the equipment.

“My dad does construction work,” Carrillo said. “He drives all of those machines. I’ve just seen all the stuff and I’ve seen him on the machines. He even drove one to our house. With a machine, he destroyed the back of our driveway and put new concrete down.”

Carrillo said he would consider a career driving heavy equipment because of his father.

“I would like to do everything he did, the excavator, dump truck and all that,” Carrillo said.

In the second class of fourth graders, the team of Justice Wade, Elaina DeMarrias and Ryatt Brumbalow won the competition with a time of 1 minute, 5 seconds.

What was their secret to winning?

“Watching others do it,” Brumbalow said.

“Paying close attention to the button so you know how they move,” DeMarrias said.

Wade said the task was “super easy. You only had to press a couple of buttons, and I play a lot of video games.”

Hunt said the activity was developed to get students interested in the heavy equipment industry.

“We are trying to find the next generation to build those roads,” said Adam McPhail, director of Workforce Development for Lawton Public Schools.

“If you are willing to stick around, you can make a good career out of it,” Hunt said. “We hope that they learn construction is a career path. It can be a really, really fun job. We just want to plant a seed and hopefully that translates into why it’s important to work hard in the classroom.”