While their friends hit the mall or just slept in Monday, some area high school students spent their first day of winter break going back to school.

Dustin Roper, a Flowery Branch High School junior, saw the opportunity to attend Motor Sports Camp at Lanier Technical College as a leg up to eventually pursuing an engineering degree in college.

“And the best thing about (the camp) is … it’s free,” he said.

The two-year technical school is holding the two-day camp, along with the two-day Robotics Camp, to further motivate or spark interest in high school students to pursue careers in those fields.

The college is using a grant from the Governor’s Office of Workforce Development to pay for the camps, which cost $5,000 each, said Russell Vandiver, Lanier Tech’s vice president of economic development.

Vandiver went against conventional thought and planned camps during winter break.

“My staff said, ‘You’re crazy. You can’t get kids to come here at that time,’” he said.

But 24 students did show up, or 12 in each of the camps, which are being held in the college’s Center of Innovation for Manufacturing Excellence.

Students in robotics are learning about careers in advanced manufacturing and they’re getting hands-on experience with industrial robots, automated manufacturing systems, programmable logic controllers and vision systems.

Motor Sports students not only are getting to swing tires on cars or tighten lug nuts, as if part of a pit crew, but they are learning about metal fabrication, wiring and precision engine measurement.

On Monday, industry representatives talked about potential careers.

“There’s a world of opportunity out there,” Vandiver said.

The college used high school graduation “coaches” to refer students to the camps.

The state created the coach position this year to have someone in place to help identify students who show signs of dropping out of school and then work with them to keep them on track academically.

Vandiver said two students told him Monday that if not for the camps they wouldn’t be considering attending Lanier Tech.

That put a smile on his face. “I’m not afraid to take chances with this (kind of instruction),” he said.

Gregory Rios, a Gainesville High School senior and aspiring mechanic, said that so far the Motor Sports camp has been “real fun.”

He said one key thing he has learned at the camp is the importance of teamwork.

“We are using a race car (in the instruction),” said Bud Hughes, who teaches in Lanier Tech’s Motor Sports program, “but this is not about racing. This is about doing something and going about it the right way.

”... And that transfers to other things in life.”

Greg Morin of North Carolina-based Pit Instruction and Training is helping out with the Motor Sports Camp. His company “takes people from the ground up and turns them into pit crew athletes.”

Emphasis on the word “athletes.” Smacking a tire on a race car in one motion requires great physical skill and keeping in shape.

“There are four or five guys here with potential talent, which, coupled with the education they can get (at Lanier Tech), opens them up to anything,” Morin said.

Vandiver said he is planning other camps in the spring, summer and next fall. He also would like to increase the number of students and reach into the middle schools.

As to potential offerings, he isn’t sure what those would be.

“We will listen to what the folks in the schools have to say,” Vandiver said.