Technical and Professional Skills Development in Practice Course for Advance Manufacturing Technology with Modern Information Technology

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1 Technical and Professional Skills Development in Practice Course for Advance Manufacturing Technology with Modern Information Technology DongMin Zhang, YanYun Wu, and XiuGuo Shen School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Institute of Technology, Shanghai , China Abstract. Practice Course for Advance Manufacturing Technology developed engineering students skills and knowledge on new technical areas and nontechnical areas such as teamwork, communication and lifelong learning. This paper describes three projects where students practiced lifelong learning skills including locating, seeking and understanding new information with selfdirected and team-based cooperative learning approaches. Self-directed learning activities also make students have an intrinsic belief that one is responsible for one s own learning. Keywords: Skill Development, Technical Skill, Professional Skill, Practice Course, Advanced Manufacturing. 1 Introduction Emerging technologies in engineering challenge the new generation of engineers to work in more specialized environments[1,2]. Engineering educators in turn are faced with the challenge of training students with the skills and knowledge on new technical areas and non-technical areas such as teamwork, communication and lifelong learning[3,4]. This approach was chosen in practice course for advanced manufacturing technology at the Shanghai Institute of Technology (SIT). The course exposed students to a project-oriented and team-based cooperative learning environment. Students were placed in teams of three or four for each project. The course will not only help students learn advanced manufacturing and inspection technology, and but will understand information integration in design, manufacture, and inspect, and but will also instill problem-solving skills, teamwork skills, and hands-on experiences. Both software technologies and modern hardware tools (CNC, CMM) have been implemented into the practice courses. This paper presents details of planning, managing, implementing, and assessing such a practice course development activity in advanced manufacturing technology under the mechanical engineering curriculum. 2 Practice Course for Advance Manufacturing Technology The two credit Practice Course for Advance Manufacturing Technology senior-level course lasts for two weeks. At the first day, students organized into three projects at their will and interest and one process report was submitted at the end of week to S. Lin, X. Huang (Eds.): CSEE 2011, Part IV, CCIS 217, pp , Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011

2 Technical and Professional Skills Development in Practice Course 211 Fig. 1. Projects and teams schedules describe their project objectives, plans and work distribution among team-members. Those first-round projects shown in Figure 1 were completed in one week. One team elected to operate the HARDING CNC machine and produce 3 molds, and then create an easy-to-follow operation manual for using the HARDING to machine the molds based on their machining practices and a pre-existing operation manual prepared by the instructor. The second team built CNC programming for the HARDING CNC machining center using Siemens NX software or MasterCAM software and virtually machined the mold. The third team inspected the mold with Coordinate Measuring Machines, and developed a report to show how successful the mold is in meeting the original design intent.the three teams were individually named as CNC machining team, CNC programming team, and CMM team. Students worked hard during lab time in order to finish projects on time. Teams also arranged time outside of assigned labs to meet and work on projects. After one week, the student teams moved to short-term second round projects. To make sure every student had opportunities to attain similar technical skills practices in the course, teams swapped projects every two or three days, as shown in Figure 1. When one project was completed, the team moved to the next project. One final report was also required to describe project activities and results, team work, the skills and knowledge obtained from the project axis CNC Machining This project required students to machine molds. Students in the course had used the HARDING machining center before. The materials used for machining were 400 long, 400 millimeter wide and 250 millimeter thick industrial wax blanks. The team prepared all documentation including tools, fixture, and programs to enable a new operator set up everything quickly by following their instructions. One easy-to-follow operation manual for the machining center was modified by the team based on the experiences from the project. Figure 2 shows molds machined by the team. In the final report, the HARDING CNC machining team stated: The knowledge we gained on this project will help us in the manufacturing industry no doubt. We also learned how to determine the offsets and zeros of the part that we were running. During the second-round projects, the other two teams were asked to follow the operation manual modified by the CNC machining team, and further modify the manual based on their experiences.

3 212 D. Zhang, Y. Wu, and X. Shen a) Attaching tool b) Rough machining c) Finish machining Fig. 2. Mold machined by the CNC machining team 2.2 CNC programming This project required students to do CNC programming for molds. Students in the course have learned one CAM-software at least, such as NX/CAM, or MasterCAM before. The team prepared NX/CAM NC programming process, its general procedure is as follows. The first is called blank product components loaded, and then processing programs were created to define the object processing processes, design tools. The last post processing generates CNC machining code for DNC transfer and CNC machining. NX/CAM system provides a variety of processing methods defined object, tool path guided dynamic approach and the diversity of design. During second-round projects, the other two teams had opportunities to use the NX/CAM software to program the complex mold. They were also required to submit final reports including narrative, NC/CAM model, and G-code files. Figure 3 shows tool paths and the simulation machining result with the software NX/CAM. a) Tool path for 1 st rough machining (partial) b) Simulation for 1 st rough machining c) Tool path for finish machining (steep) d) Tool path for finish machining (no-steep) e) Simulation for finish machining Fig. 3. Tool paths and the simulation machining result with the software

4 Technical and Professional Skills Development in Practice Course 213 The team for the project stated in their final report that We learned advanced NX/CAM software to program the complex mold part. We applied much knowledge we have learned, such as material, processing, tools, jigs, etc. The knowledge and skill we gained on this project will help us in the manufacturing industry no doubt. We also learned how to get the good tool paths. We done a CNC programming, and simulated tool paths, and generated G-code for HARDING. We learned how to better operate the given software more efficiently. We discovered new ways to work effectively within a time frame, make the most of our mistakes and organize task as a project group. 2.3 CMM inspecting This project required students to test a part against the original design of that part and to develop a report to show how successful the part is in meeting the original design intent. The team created a program to tell the machine exactly what to test and how to do it. In one week, the team had figured out how to set up the CMM probe, inspected a mold and built a model from measurement data. They also wrote a simple operation manual for the CMM. Another two teams inspected a mold they had machined from the earlier project. The team had difficulty in programming a CMM using only the software supplied by the manufacturer. In the final report, the CMM inspecting stated: Programming a CMM using only the software supplied by the manufacturer is far more tedious than programming a CNC with the current CAM packages. In fact, it is similar to programming a CNC machine by writing one line of G-code at a time. NX is working to automate that data into the CMM program generation process. 3 Integrating Technical and Professional Skills Development The Course developed engineering students technical and professional skills, which included the following competencies: Demonstrate the practical skill required to operate machining center, select tools and jigs, and NC program, and produce manufactured products economically, reliably, and quickly. Demonstrate the theoretical and practical knowledge required to select machining method, select tools and jigs, and programming, simulate tool paths. Demonstrate the theoretical and practical knowledge required to measure part parameters and propose appropriate corrective action. Demonstrate communication skills with respect to the ability to define a project, support choices made in the decision stage, and clearly communicate with the lecturer. Identify appropriate information sources, assess validity, and integrate information sources. Demonstrate the ability of self-directed learning for life-long learning. Form a team, create goals, effectively measure attainment of those goals, and learn from others in a cooperative learning environment.

5 214 D. Zhang, Y. Wu, and X. Shen Some achievements listed in the syllabus included technical skills such as better usage of Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing software, CNC machines operation, and CMM program based 3D CAD knowledge and application, and professional life skills including teamwork, life-long learning and communication skills. Through projects, students understood their learning continues beyond the classroom or lab. They also have practiced self-learning and learning from others including team members and colleagues in a cooperative learning environment. Most students were motivated to solve problems in projects actively and by themselves. 4 Summary To an extent, the practice course has been successful. The reform efforts were implemented in the senior practice course for advance manufacturing technology. Both software technologies and modern hardware tools have been implemented into the practice courses. Team based and self-directed projects integrated technical and professional life skills development. Acknowledgements. This work was supported by Shanghai Education Science Research Project (Project Number: B10043) and by Shanghai Leading Academic Discipline Project (Project Number: J51501). The authors would like to thank all students in Class B1, B2, B1, B2 at SIT in Winter 2009 and Winter References 1. Walt, L., Win, A., Richard, B., et al.: A Vision of the Future of Mechanical Engineering Education. ASME Council on Education (November 2004) 2. Chen, X., Kim, D.: Implementing a Design and Manufacturing Track in a Mechanical Engineering Programe. American Society for Engineering Education (2009) 3. Larry, J.S., Mary, B.S., Jack, M.: The ABET Professional Skills -Can They be Taught? Can they be Assessed? Journal of Engineering Education, 41 (January 2005) 4. Wang, J., Fang, A., Johnson, M.: Enhancing and Assessing Life Long Learning Skills through Capstone Projects. American Society for Engineering Education (2008)