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Externship Summary

RCNGM Leader: Dave Salonia, Project Lead the Way
Berlin High School

Externship: Mectron, Inc.

Lessons Learned

The most useful learning component of my externship was the ability to go to a business and learn what they do and how they do it. In my particular situation, I worked closely with a gentleman who owned and operated a manufacturing design and consulting firm. He stressed the need for efficiency in the design process. He also stressed the need for communication and design planning with his clients. When speaking with a client, it's important to really understand their needs. Therefore, before any design work was done, a detailed design discussion took place between the client and the consultant. The design consultant signed a confidentiality agreement, which prevented the consultant from discussing details of the design with anyone else. Since I worked in the office, I signed a confidentiality agreement as well.

Once the design details and the scope of the project were discussed, the consultant began to prepare some design proposals. The consultant stressed the need to present several proposals to the client so the client can choose the one that is most suitable for his business. Then, a design review took place. The client was asked to choose one or two designs to develop in more detail. It's important to recognize that sometimes a design review might cancel an existing project or proposal because the design analysis revealed that it would be too costly or unfeasible to implement the project in its original form. Then, the client must either change the project scope or cancel it before too many dollars are wasted toward a project that will not go to market.

I was impressed with the amount of detail that goes into a design proposal and that once a design consultant does good work for a client, the client usually came back for more design work. The client liked the consultant because he could get design work done on an "ala carte" basis without the need (and added cost) of employing a full-time engineer.

The most challenging component was my break-in period. When an educator enters into a relationship with an organization, there is a certain amount of orientation or break-in period that is required. In my situation, I had to learn about the organization, and my externship host had to learn about me. Trust is an important factor. We had to discuss my work schedule - when and where I would work within his facility. We had to discuss confidentiality. We had to discuss safety issues and insurance for liability if I got hurt in his facility.

My externship host had to get a feel for my skill level. He asked me to complete a set of "mock" engineering design projects so he could get a better understanding for my design competency, specifically with the Autodesk Inventor software product. Then, he analyzed and corrected my design work according to industry procedures, his procedures and his policies. Each day during the first week, my host gave me an assignment that would require me to reverse engineer and redesign it using the CADD system. After my designs were complete, he asked me to change various specifications of my design to give me a feel for what clients actually do during the design process. This involved a tedious redesign of the drawing.

Then, my host showed me how to build "intelligence" into my design. This meant that we would now design with the ability to make design changes more easily. This was particularly challenging because I was required to adopt a different mindset with regard to how the parts features and dimensions are originally set up. An easy example would be as follows: if the length of the part was always twice the width, then instead of entering the width as the actual dimension, the width would be entered as an equation or in this case (.5L). Then, if the length dimension were changed, the width would automatically change. If this logic is adopted throughout the entire design, sweeping design changes could be implemented almost instantly. This technique is particularly useful when families of parts are being designed. This technique of designing with equations translates to significant cost savings for the client and a shorter design-to-market time cycle. I thought this was a very important lesson for my engineering students and was very pleased to learn it from my externship host.

Impact on Student Learning

I think that students always benefit from actual experience whether it's a lab activity, a case study that's discussed in a small group format, or a field trip. My curriculum includes a specific problem that the students need to solve given a certain set of constraints. Then, the students must use the knowledge that they’ve gained to solve this problem. They use higher level thinking skills and begin to create their own knowledge during this process. Many of my engineering students have said their engineering classes "have been the most important and fun classes during their entire high school experience." I believe this is a significant statement and it attests to the value of this curriculum. When a student can learn and have fun at the same time it's a tremendous accomplishment, not only for the student, but for the teacher as well. It's much more gratifying to teach a group of students that want to learn as opposed to students who are learning out of obligation. With this curriculum, students are motivated to learn because they have a goal that is meaningful to them. It's a much more, real-world approach.

I incorporated what I learned into a series of exercises for my "Intro to Engineering Design and "Intro to CADD" students. I taught them how to set up origins, how to use work planes, work axes and work points to design parts, and how to design for manufacturability.

We discussed tapers and how they are used in the design of plastic parts to allow "draft" and ease of separation from the die once the molten plastic has been injected. We discussed how to design for a knurling operation, also how to use the Alvin screw data selector to calculate the proper hole size for standard screws. We also discussed physical part properties such as weight and how to calculate the weight of a part based on its design data.

In another exercise, I developed a model for a locomotive assembly. We used the "adaptive" feature built into the Inventor software. I learned that it's much easier to build parts into an assembly than to make them as separate parts, especially when there are bolt-hole patterns and areas that must line up exactly. By making parts adaptive to the base part, when the base part is changed, the adaptive parts also change. This saves a tremendous amount of time during the design process.

In another exercise, I used my newly developed skills to create a 6’ x 8’ tool shed model for my World of Technology class. This activity will be used next semester. Each part of the tool shed was made and assembled in the system. We will then make a balsa model as a class.

I also created an 8-week training outline for our Berlin First Robotics Group. This group of middle and high school students will build a robot for State and National competition.

My curriculum was also used to help an engineering student who is doing an independent study. He was using the software to design a tabletop radio, complete with case, electronic components, and wiring. This involved using a command called "create harness". I also worked with this student to design a winch with reducing gears using the "Design Accelerator" portion of the software. Design Accelerator is a new software feature that allows easy creation of standard mechanical components such as: gears, bolted connections, Finally, we used a new rendering feature (Inventor Studio) to make a photograph-quality image of the radio design. The rendering piece of the software is very effective; the radio rendering looked like a photograph of an actual radio!

Another project that I completed was an anvil organizer stand for my externship host. I reverse engineered the anvil, the organizer box, the casters, and developed a stand made of 1/2" steel plate. The assignment was challenging because I was given a certain size plate to work with and I needed to make the design so that the existing size plate could be utilized in its entirety without buying more steel. It was a lesson in developing the most cost-efficient utilization of materials.

After the externship was completed, my externship host came to my classroom and went over all the details of what we discussed and what I learned during the externship. I previously sent him a copy of the curriculum plan and he went over the plan in detail. During his visit, he pointed out several areas that needed to be corrected and also some areas that I didn't include. He was a big help in getting the curriculum plan into an accurate format so I could be more of a resource to my students and have a smoother implementation. He brought his laptop computer and we did work out some design problems together. He corrected and enhanced some design files and then shared those files with me. He gave me information on how to set up an extensive standard parts library using the Thomasnet.com standard parts library. This will save a tremendous amount of time designing parts such as nuts, bolts, screws and other types of standard hardware items that are used in most mechanical assemblies today.

Externship Sustainability

We have a small department of four technology education teachers. We eat lunch together every day. So we have many opportunities to share our experiences with each other. This is important because sometimes teaching can be challenging at best and frustrating at worst. It's important to communicate with your peers any problems or issues encountered during the teaching process. Sometimes it's important just to have a forum to vent. During these discussions, I have spoken to my peers about the externship program and how I believe it has made me a better teacher. I get to learn the latest technology advances in my field so that my teaching is more relevant to the students and to the community.

Technology education is an ever-changing curriculum because technology constantly changes. It's important to reach out to the community and learn what is being done so that teaching matches and encourages a knowledge base of what is actually required by local manufacturers and design firms. In fact, as a result of my discussions, one of my peers is now interested in doing an externship this summer.

I plan on doing this externship every year and becoming a good role model for the externship process. I would like to do an externship at a different host organization every year to learn a good cross-section of what's being done at several local manufacturers. Last year, I did generic mechanical design with a design consultant. This year I would like to work at a larger company, possibly aerospace or aeronautics because of it's importance to the State’s gross product. My current engineering curriculum (Project Lead The Way) has recognized the need for aerospace education and has developed a new aerospace engineering curriculum. I hope that my next experience can dovetail with the new program that's being introduced.

 

 

 

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The Regional Center for Next Generation Manufacturing is funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation Advanced Technology Education program. Copyright 2005. All rights reserved.