If you thought the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo was just about country music and farm animals, you’d be wrong on many counts. Youth and adults have been flocking this year to NRG Center to let virtual sparks fly at a new welding experience.
Cameron High School student Owen Graham is one of hundreds who tried out the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo’s virtual reality welding simulator, hosted by Ohio-based Lincoln Electric Company.
Graham, who was in town for spring break to show his Limousin heifer at the livestock show, said he enjoyed virtual welding — though he clearly prefers real sparks over virtual ones.
“It was fun to do but I couldn’t strike an arc like you would with a normal welding rod,” he said. “If I’d never seen welding before, I’d love this. It’s a good introduction to what it’s like and if you’re just a Houston kid who’s never done it before, maybe you’d find out that you like it and want to see if you can take a class at your school.”
Graham’s friend Jack Christman from Milano High School also tried it out but “he’s not very good,” Graham said.
The virtual welding experience is outside Hall C at the NRG Center, free and open to the public through the duration of the rodeo, which wraps up March 23.
Denise Sirochman, product manager for education at Lincoln Electric, said the Voyage Arc career exploration simulator costs about $2,000 and is marketed to schools that serve students in fifth, sixth and seventh grades. The experience on display at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo could open career paths not just to welding but to engineering or architecture, Sirochman said. It’s also valuable for those entering the workforce to know how to navigate virtual headset training, she added.
“Mostly we try to lend it out to groups like the rodeo group so they can expose the kids to welding,” she said. “We try to do this often to get the word out that the product is available.”
Users pop on an all-in-one headset similar to equipment used for video games.
“We pushed this one down to the lower levels and ‘game-ified’ it a little bit to spark that interest so when they get into ninth and 10th grades they understand what welding is and can pick it as a career track,” Sirochman said.
The virtual experience takes users through several modules as an introduction to welding.
“It transports them to a shop-like atmosphere where they can begin to learn the aspects and the body positions for welding,” Sirochman said. “They are assessed on that. Once they accumulate so many points, they go into a virtual locker room and get to kind of bedazzle their welding helmet.”
After practicing in the shop, the user is transported to a virtual amusement park where they’re tasked with welding rides such as a rollercoaster, sky drop or Ferris wheel.
“Once they weld the ride to completion, then they get to ride the ride virtually,” she said. “Kids are used to virtual reality and they can withstand a rollercoaster ride. Adults, however, have a little problem with the equilibrium. Make sure you’re sitting down.”
Graham, although familiar with virtual headset gaming, had to take a breather when he got to the rollercoaster.
“It’s scary,” he said with a laugh. “It feels like a real one. I’m starting to get dizzy.”
HLSR scholarship manager Jamie Voskamp said this is the first year virtual welding has been offered, and they’ve increased the scholarship pot to $500,000 for vocational programs like welding.
“I think sometimes people forget that we are a charity,” Voskamp said. “We’re impacting thousands of students’ lives.”
The scholarship program started in 1957 with a $2,000 scholarship that covered Ben Dickerson’s four years of tuition at Texas A&M University. This year, the HLSR will award 644 academic scholarships of $20,000 each to students across Texas.
But not everyone wants to go to a four-year college, Voskamp acknowledged. The vocational scholarships don’t go through a judging process. They’re vetted through 10 partner community and junior colleges, including Houston Community College, Lamar Institute of Technology, Lee College, Lone Star College, San Jacinto College, Texas State Technical College and Wharton County Junior College.
“We work with those schools and some industry professionals to determine where the need is in Houston,” Voskamp said. “Where is our gap? Where do we need workers? We help to fund scholarships for those schools for students in those fields.”
The students may be recent high school graduates or non-traditional students going back to learn a trade.
“Some folks really enjoy working with their hands or working out in the field,” Voskamp said. “There is a great need in Houston. We provide funds for scholarships in what we call our technical industrial fields, things like oil and gas, welding, pipe-fitting, HVAC and truck driving. We also do [scholarships for] the medical field. We have the largest medical complex in the world here in Houston and they need employees who are coming back and working, especially after COVID.”
HLSR Board Chair Pat Mann Phillips is a strong believer in career readiness and vocational training, Voskamp said. Rodeo officials reached out earlier this year to Texas State University which previously partnered by offering actual welding equipment for a training demonstration that wasn’t particularly accessible to the public. The Texas State folks recommended Lincoln Electric’s virtual display.
“We were able to work with them to bring that activation here and set up for kids of all ages, from 1 to 99, to try their hand at welding,” Voskamp said. “I think it’s been pretty well-received so far. I know that folks are always looking for hands-on things to do. It’s getting a lot of traffic.”
It’s unclear how many recipients there will be from this year’s $500,000 vocational scholarships, Voskamp said, although the website references six already-pledged one-year gifts of $16,000. Last year, $400,000 was doled out to 75 recipients. The scholarships vary depending on the program so some are $1,500 for a certificate or up to $14,000 for a more intensive welding program, Voskamp said.
Sirochman said she’s excited to see Texas youth take an interest in welding.
“We conducted probably 20-plus field trials and the ones that are really drawn to it are the girls, and they excel,” she said. “You get a classroom of that awkward age — fifth, sixth, seventh graders — and everyone is very cognizant of who’s around them. They don’t want to look silly. The girls step up and are very self-confident in trying it and they usually do the best.”
Sirochman added that there’s a whole generation that doesn’t understand the trades because they haven’t been introduced to them.
“We’re trying to change that perception,” she said. “It’s a hard attitude to change. Welding has morphed into robotic welding, automation aspects … you have to know how to weld but you’re not necessarily welding all day. You’re watching a robot weld but you have to know how to program it.”
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
