A group of high school seniors in the New Visions Engineering program toured Guyson Corporation’s Saratoga Springs plant on October 14, 2011, to gain insights into machinery design and manufacturing and to see the central role engineers play in the process.
Engineering Manager Alex Thomson explains how the Fanuc M-710iC robot will be integrated in a robotic grit-blasting system under construction at Guyson's Saratoga Springs plant for an aircraft engine overhaul facility.
The students started their visit in the Design Engineering offices, where they saw CAD/CAM software in use, talked about the day-to-day activities of engineers and saw some examples of documents that must be produced before an automatic blast machine can be built. The group then progressed to the Machine Shop and saw CNC machine tools being used to make precision components, the Weld Shop to observe blast equipment taking shape and all the other areas of the manufacturing floor, essentially following the steps of assembly that lead to a complete and operational automated or robotic blast system.
In the application engineering laboratory, the group witnessed a demonstration of a Guyson RB-9 robotic blasting machine, in which the robot serves as a precision manipulator of the blast nozzle, then they went to the Assembly Area and had a close-up look at a larger industrial robot that is about to become part of a robotic grit-blast machine that will be used by an aerospace customer.
One of the Career and Technical Education offerings of the area Board of Cooperative Educational Services, the New Visions Engineering program includes rigorous academic elements, but it also give the college-bound students practical perspectives on engineering by visits to technology companies the in Southern Adirondack and Capital Region. To learn more about the New Visions Engineering program, visit the Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex BOCES web site at http://www.wswheboces.org/CTE.cfm?subpage=119 .
