A couple of years ago we went through a downsizing. We had some
Unigraphics seats and two CNC mills on lease that were excess to our
needs that we helped move into the high school vocational program At
the same time one of the programmer/toolmakers retired and took a
position with the vocational school to help set up a program to
integrate it into the machine shop class, which had some manual machines
and a few seats of Autocad. There was little interest in what was being
offered and only two students were studying Autocad.
Once they found they could make solid models, and then make what they
had designed, interest picked up significantly, especially with those
most interested in continuing their education in technology. Also, kids
interested in being toolmakers/machinists/designers are finding they
need more education to enter those kinds of career fields. They have
recently started an intern program where the kids spend 4hr a day in
their senior year working in industry. It has been very popular, both
with the kids and with industry which has been able to get some very
qualified help with short term design problems. For the ones interested
in RP, and it is part of the curriculum, some of the local businesses
who have RP machines have been making models so they can better
understand the process.
The next step is to find a way to get a small RP machine to reside in
the school to make more models that have they designed. But... There
are some real downsides to putting a machine in, high cost, high
material cost, high maintenance cost, and low reliability. With all the
competition for the school dollars they probably cannot afford any kind
of RP machine.
-- Ray Thompson Manufacturing Engineer Delphi Energy and Engine Management SystemsFor more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
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