SAIT students help Paul Brandt rebuild his 1973 Airstream trailer

A Calgary student says his LinkedIn profile is going to shine thanks to one of his assignments: contributing to the rebuild of a well-known country singer's vintage trailer.

Bryce Shirley is a third-year mechanical engineering technologist student at SAIT.

He says the street cred of helping Paul Brandt repurpose his Airstream trailer is invaluable to him.

"When you are going into industry without a whole lot of experience," Shirley said.

He said it was hard work, but incredible training.

"This was everything. We had to look at budget restraints, we took notes, we had meetings, we followed up. It was very much real work experience."

Brandt bought the trailer about a year-and-a-half ago and stripped it to its shell, and then realized rebuilding would be the tricky part.

"So I decided to enlist some help," Brandt told the Calgary Eyeopener.

He hopes the trailer will become a storytelling and community gathering space.

"The concept of this rebuild was about inviting other people in and using it as a conversation piece," Brandt said.

And that's where Greg Ball comes in. He's a mechanical engineering technology instructor at SAIT and says he loved the idea of getting students involved.

"He wanted to keep the shell," Ball said of Brandt's starting point.

"It has a beautiful patina from many years of weather on it."

Then came the sometimes prickly topic of budget.

To everyone's surprise, Brandt said, well, there isn't one.

"I never start a song that way, thinking what are the limitations? I think about the possibilities. Those are questions we ask as creators," Brandt explained.

"It's not 'sky's the limit,' but let's think that way in the beginning and we can put reality on it later."

But student Shirley said, that creates some unique challenges on its own.

"There were no real constraints," he said.

"We could dream, put in all these possible things but the more we pitch, the more it could be shot down. We couldn't dream too far because it still had to be realistic and attainable."

The student group was broken into a handful of teams that each pitched a concept for the rebuild.  

Ball says Brandt took ideas from each pitch.

Shirley's team went as far as a virtual reality experience so Brandt could immerse himself in the rebuild.

"We wanted him to be able to walk through the trailer and actually look at the bathroom, what his family would look like sitting at the table," Shirley said.

Brandt has made most of the decisions so the next step is the physical rebuilding of the trailer, by a second group of students.

Incredible project

Rebuilding of the trailer could take about a year, Ball said.

And while Shirley updates his resume and LinkedIn profile, Brandt says he's happy how the project came together.

"It's been just an incredible project. We have been having a lot of fun together and learning a ton," Brandt said.