Students in Charlie Lauts’ fifth-hour engineering class are used to seeing their designs on a computer screen, but this semester they have the chance to build a child a precious playplace.

Engineering students partnered with CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), to create a Hobbit-themed playhouse. The structure was designed and is being built by students. The house must be ready in time for graduation, when supporters will begin selling raffle tickets. Raffle profits will go to CASA.

Lauts’ class began working on the house in March and will present it on May 19. The class got start-up money from the organization for building materials.

“Since we’re doing the class anyway, it’s very nice to be able to give to a cause,” senior Tanner Smith said.

The experience of constructing the playhouse is unique to the students in the architecture and engineering classes, who often only make computer blueprints or small models of their ideas.

“I think it’s been really exciting mostly because a lot of these kids have taken classes where they’ve done all the drawings but they’ve never been able to produce anything they’ve drawn,” Lauts said. “So now they’re actually being able to see something come from a 2-dimensional drawing on a computer to a real 3-D thing they can actually walk through.”

The CASA board of directors decided on the Hobbit design and relayed the idea to the students.

The organization trains volunteer adults to work with children who are going through the legal system and are without a permanent home. The kids who the program reaches out to are often victims of physical and emotional abuse.

Although CASA will get the profits from the raffle, students building the structure also benefit from getting the hands-on experience of seeing their blueprints through to a finished product.

“Since we’re all going into architecture-related fields, we’re all getting hands-on experience to see our projects go from concept to actually building them,” senior Brent Cahwee said.