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Program Executive Office, Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (PEO ACWA)Program Executive Office, Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (PEO ACWA)Program Executive Office, Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (PEO ACWA)Program Executive Office, Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (PEO ACWA)
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      Program Executive Office, Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (PEO ACWA)


      Mission: The safe elimination of chemical weapons at Pueblo and Blue Grass by Sept. 30, 2023

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Chemical Demilitarization in the Classroom

Published: October 30, 2019 | Category: Events, PCAPP News
  • Pleasant View Middle School students, along with teacher Todd Seip, watch training specialist Kent Ladd point out the parts and contents of a chemical weapon during a Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant Training Facility tour.

    Pleasant View Middle School students, along with teacher Todd Seip, watch training specialist Kent Ladd point out the parts and contents of a chemical weapon during a Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant Training Facility tour.

  • Pleasant View Middle School students in Todd Seip’s automation and robotics class work on programming autonomous vehicles they assembled from LEGO EV3 kits to learn parallel parking skills.

    Pleasant View Middle School students in Todd Seip’s automation and robotics class work on programming autonomous vehicles they assembled from LEGO EV3 kits to learn parallel parking skills.

  • Pleasant View Middle School students in Todd Seip’s automation and robotics class work on programming autonomous vehicles they assembled from LEGO EV3 kits to learn parallel parking skills.

    Pleasant View Middle School students in Todd Seip’s automation and robotics class work on programming autonomous vehicles they assembled from LEGO EV3 kits to learn parallel parking skills.

  • Pleasant View Middle School students, along with automation and robotics teacher Todd Seip, watch control room operator Dirk Smith use a lift-assist to move test munitions during a Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant Training Facility tour.

    Pleasant View Middle School students, along with automation and robotics teacher Todd Seip, watch control room operator Dirk Smith use a lift-assist to move test munitions during a Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant Training Facility tour.

  • Pleasant View Middle School students, along with teacher Todd Seip, watch training specialist Brett Peterson demonstrate Demilitarization Protective Ensemble gear during a Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant Training Facility tour.

    Pleasant View Middle School students, along with teacher Todd Seip, watch training specialist Brett Peterson demonstrate Demilitarization Protective Ensemble gear during a Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant Training Facility tour.

  • Pleasant View Middle School students, along with automation and robotics teacher Todd Seip, listen as training specialist Tom Bailey talks about Munitions Washout System robotics during a Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant Training Facility tour.

    Pleasant View Middle School students, along with automation and robotics teacher Todd Seip, listen as training specialist Tom Bailey talks about Munitions Washout System robotics during a Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant Training Facility tour.

Students at a local school, not far from the heavily automated plant destroying chemical weapons, are learning that robots come in all shapes and sizes.

“I think this will really help them to see what their small-scale project is going to look like and put it into a real-world context,” said Todd Seip, teacher, Pleasant View Middle School.

Seip’s class toured the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant’s nearby training facility and watched a life-size, working Projectile/Mortar Disassembly system maneuver empty test munitions through the enhanced reconfiguration process used at the real plant.

A day earlier, in his classroom – half computer lab, half industrial arts shop – Seip oversaw a demonstration by his seventh-graders as they ran small LEGO robots they had programmed themselves through tabletop mazes drawn on large sheets of paper, before shifting gears to teach the autonomous vehicles parallel-parking skills.

He said seeing the gauntlet of automated systems going through the motions of dismantling inert munitions was a valuable experience for the students.

“We talk and discuss how mechanical precision is not just important but can be vital to the safety of the workers and machines being used,” Seip said. “Although our student-assembled LEGO EV3 robots are precise to the millimeter in some of our robotic challenges, the robotics machinery (in the plant) obviously needs to be even more precise.”

Automated systems help the Pueblo plant safely destroy Colorado’s portion of the remaining United States chemical weapons stockpile. The Projectile/Mortar Disassembly system dismantles munitions in the Explosion Containment Rooms of the Enhanced Reconfiguration Building. Automated Guided Vehicles carry the munitions to the Agent Processing Building, where a Munitions Washout System drains mustard agent to be eliminated through a process known as neutralization followed by biotreatment. The metal shells get recycled, and the leftover chemicals are shipped to approved waste treatment facilities.

Tom Bailey, training specialist, PCAPP, said the training facility helps reinforce STEM – science, technology, engineering and math – principles that are so important today.

“If this is a positive influence in our community, we’re happy for it,” he said. “But really, I think, at the end of the day the people who come and visit us walk away with a clear understanding of the engineering, the science and the physical aspects of the robotics that it takes to do what we do here.”

Before visiting the training site, Seip said, the students expected its large robots to be complicated and hard to program. Instead, they noted that the control program they saw in action was simpler in some ways than what they used to teach their automated maze runners and parallel parkers.

Seip said teachers at Pleasant View this winter will coordinate on a project for their sixth-graders based on the early 20th century, and he will focus on science and technological advancements during World War I, in part using fact sheets provided by PCAPP. “One of the areas we will cover is warfare and chemical warfare,” he said. “That will lead to talk of chemical agents and how they were used, then subsequently banned. And now that they are banned, how do we destroy them without harming our environment?”

PCAPP Event Articles

  • Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant workers celebrate the destruction of 50% of the mustard agent in the Colorado chemical weapons stockpile on Feb. 26. An April 4 public celebration to mark the milestone has been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Pueblo Event Marking Mustard Agent Milestone Canceled

    Published: March 17, 2020
  • An ordnance technician at the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant reconfigures a 4.2-inch mortar round from its ready-to-use state to one ready for processing and destruction.

    Destruction Campaign Progresses at Pueblo Plant

    Published: November 15, 2019
  • Static Detonation Chamber components are placed on their concrete pad at the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant in Colorado. Three SDC units will be assembled to aid the main plant in its mission to destroy the chemical weapons stockpile at the U.S. Army Pueblo Chemical Depot.

    Pueblo Plant Begins Static Detonation Chamber Assembly

    Published: November 12, 2019
  • The Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant is pursuing a final Part B Hazardous Waste Operating Permit, which will govern the processing of the remaining chemical munitions stockpile.

    Pueblo Plant Pursues Final Operating Permit for Main Process

    Published: November 8, 2019
  • Pleasant View Middle School students, along with teacher Todd Seip, watch training specialist Kent Ladd point out the parts and contents of a chemical weapon during a Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant Training Facility tour.

    Chemical Demilitarization in the Classroom

    Published: October 30, 2019
  • A worker at the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant places 105mm projectiles that have been unboxed and reconfigured for processing on a pallet using a motorized lift assist.

    Pueblo Plant Destroys More Than 1,000 U.S. Tons of Chemical Warfare Agent

    Published: October 2, 2019
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Program Executive Office, Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (PEO ACWA)