The Mfg4 student challenge is a middle and high school manufacturing competition. Teams comprised of three to six students and a teacher work with local manufacturers and become familiar with the products made and processes used. Student teams could select from two competition areas: "Lean and Green" in which student groups analyzed a process or manufacturing work cell and presented process improvements or "Reverse Engineering" in which the student groups were responsible for design and re-imagining an existing product.
The challenge, held during the recent Mfg4 event in Hartford, Conn., was sponsored by industry leader Sandvik Coromant, USA, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers Education Foundation (SME-EF), and the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology (CCAT).
The competition drew entries from several states including Vermont, New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
River Valley Technical Center, from Springfield, Vt., was the first place winner of a $1,000 award for the reverse engineering and refurbishment of an 1860 Pratt and Whitney engine lathe. The project included the complete disassembly and re-manufacture of more than 100 parts. The fully restored lathe will become part of the 150th anniversary Civil War exhibit at the American Precision Museum in Windsor, Vt. starting in July, 2012.
Second place, with a prize of $750, went to New Vision-Cecor at Orange-Ulster BOCES technical school from Ulster Country, N.Y, for their work on facility design. This project involved a plant layout to make material flow in the least wasteful way regarding product and employee travel distances.
Third place, with a prize of $500, went to Windham Regional Career Center in Hinsdale, N.H. for their work in rationalizing flow across a production floor.
Sandvik Coromant’s John Jacobsen, Kevin Mayer and JoAnn Mitchell joined judges from the SME membership and local industry to examine the entries.
About SME:The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) is the premier source for manufacturing knowledge, education and networking. Through its many programs, events, activities and online training division, Tooling U, SME connects manufacturing practitioners to each other, to the latest technologies and to the most up-to-date manufacturing processes. SME has members around the world and is supported by a network of chapters and technical communities. A 501(c)3 organization, SME is a leader in manufacturing workforce development issues, working with industry, academic and government partners to support the current and future skilled workforce.
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If you have any questions or comments, please contact SME Public Relations at 313.425.3000, email communications@sme.org or fax: 313.425.3403.
Congratulations on a job well done! We should be very proud of the kids and the teacher, as well as having such a great technical center in our community.
ReplyDeleteSuch a great Technical center - without an electronics program - but a great machine shop. A tech center with no electronics course??? I think they're missing the boat.
ReplyDeleteQuite an achievement....BRAVO to the students and their teacher!
ReplyDelete@Anonymous 8:14 - With the climate of the community the way it is these days, do you think we could convince them to spend tax dollars to invest in the development of an electronics program? I agree, an electronics program would be a great addition. I read recently that they are actually shutting programs down because they don't have the money to continue offering all they used to.
ReplyDeleteWhen Arlington back around 1910 argued about whether to spend tax money to build a new school or repair the town's sorry bridges, Patrick Thompson, a second-generation Irish-American and the town grocer said at the meeting, "Let the bridges fall down! It's better to have intelligent folk getting their feet wet crossing the river than have idiots crossing dry-shod."
ReplyDeleteThanks to over forty years of ceaseless Republican propaganda, we don't think of taxes as investment in infrastructure, we don't believe government can do any good and we believe that the richest among us are the smartest. The result is a Springfield with a Tech Center that cannot compete with tech centers in other towns, other states, other countries.
The money is there, but we don't pay attention to where it's gone. A clue: The Reagan budgets increased the national deficit to $14.9 billion; the Reagan tax cuts gave $14.5 billion to the wealthiest. And it's gotten worse since: wingnuts complain that the top 1% pays 38% of income taxes, but they don't mention that it earns 60% of the income.
I am amazed that Springfielders don't think about how income inequality impoverishes the future for themselves and their children.
I agree Chuck.
DeleteChuck, for someone that has never worked for a profit and spent their entire adult life feasting from the public teat, you have a little concept how the rest of us have saved, sacrificed, and scraped by day to day to survive without holding our hand out. Then to watch OUR hard earned income bled off in taxes and gifted to an element of society you champion, that has a parasitic value system.
ReplyDeleteAs for education spending, if money alone was the answer, we'd have the finest school in Vermont. And the inability of the Tech Center to compete is directly the result of administration's choice to use it as a dumping ground for academically challenged misfits. Thus insuring an enhanced revenue generation as a jobs program for teachers and deterring any seriously capable student from wanting to participate in the program due to the stigma.
Having traveled thru much of the world I've witnessed more poverty than the average person. To state that income inequity in the USA is some hand that is randomly dealt impoverished persons is just a lame excuse for a lack of ambition.
Peoples from around the world risk all they have to be here, wishing only to WORK to their full potential and achieve their dreams. Yet you are bitter at those of us that have achieved a measure of professional respect and success.
Tell us Chuck, how is it to look at yourself at your age, say this is as good as it gets, then declare it's all a political party's fault?
Uhm, did you even bother to read the article before writing this ignorant post? The Tech Center won the competition. Income inequality is having a major impact, and because Springfield is a less than affluent community it costs more to educate the kids. Do you ever actually read the studies, or just blathery on at will?
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