As students at Southeast Lauderdale High School hammered, drilled and otherwise tweaked the haunted house they’ve been building, they were finishing a project that drew upon lots of lessons they’d been learning in class — with a little bit of improvising along the way.

“Measurement was a major thing,” said Gavin Brogan, as he pointed to a tiny wheel that helped the “vortex tunnel” in the haunted house rotate. “There are 12 of them (small wheels) in all, and if those were just a centimeter off, it was not going to go.”

It’s the sort of quiet precision lying beneath the not-so-quiet scariness of the place.

If You Go

Admission costs $5, and funds raised will support Skills USA.

The tours go from 6 to 10 p.m. on October 5, 6, 13, 14, 20, 21, 27, 28, 30 and 31 at 2362 Long Creek Road in Lauderdale County.

Brogan, a senior at the high school and a member of the school’s Skills USA chapter, helped to construct the haunted house — billed as a “Shop of Horrors.” It’s a project that began last Halloween and this year, after months of additional work, has grown into an attraction with a vortex tunnel, a maze, and a host of other features that tap the skills students have used in their construction technology/carpentry course. 

It’s an example, said carpentry instructor Jeremy Smith, of “project-based learning.”

The project is right behind the classroom Smith uses, and it harbors 16 rooms, not including the maze. Smith said the vortex alone demanded math, engineering, electrical and mechanical skills.

“It has pulleys and gears and wiring, and they had to engineer a bridge that wouldn’t move when (people) walked through,” he said.

The whole project, Smith said, taps a broad swath of lessons the students are learning.

“Some of these kids are taking physics, and some of them are taking geometry and your higher maths, and it allows them to kind of apply what they’ve learned,” he said. “It’s a hands-on application, a real-world application.”

Smith mentioned knowledge of angles, degrees, shapes and weight distribution, along with the creation of blueprints, as important parts of the work. But that doesn’t mean that students glided seamlessly for classroom to workshop.

“Some of it is trial and error, just like the real world,” Smith said.

On Thursday, the students were doing some final tasks before the opening.

“Pretty much we’re done,” senior Gage Omell said. “We just getting the last finishing touches.”

Isaiah Harrison, a junior at the high school, noted the distinctions that the students had to make when constructing various components of the attraction.

“Some walls are more decorative than other walls,” Harrison said, while others need to be sturdy.

“No spoilers,” he added, “but people are going to be banging on this wall, and people are going to be running through (this space),” he added.

Many students stressed the importance of safety, as they made sure to do away with errant nails or sharp edges — and to keep watch while their classmates worked.

“We just kind of check on each other,” said LaTroy Latham, a junior.

And Gavin Thomas, also a junior, talked about teamwork.

“It gets done faster” with teamwork, he said, noting that it’s also essential for safety.

Smith said the design took long hours of research, as well as physical construction. The spinning vortex is propelled by, among other things, a bicycle wheel and a treadmill motor. It’s a design Smith said he and the students learned about by researching other haunted houses — and as Brogan said, it took some precise measurement and experimentation to execute.

The tour-events the students are planning will tap the services of a number of students who graduated from Southeast Lauderdale High School, including Dunnam Shirley, who will run the activities from a central console the students call “Mission Control.” As the house grows more and more sophisticated, students flock back to see it in action.

“It brings a lot of kids back,” Smith said.