Help Wanted. A Lot of It.

MOON, Pa.—Tracey Spinelli recently led 18 of her students into a place college-bound kids typically shun: the school’s tool and machinery shop.

Ms. Spinelli, who works with “gifted” middle-schoolers in this Pittsburgh suburb, handed out kits containing pieces of pine wood, plastic tubes and syringes. Over the next 90 minutes, students glued together contraptions using hydraulic power—water squirted from the syringes—to lift or manipulate small objects.