Coop's Corner: Take Your Kids To Work Day

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Take Your Kids To Work Day

My employer participated for the first time last year and we did again today. As the machinist in the R&D Shop, my machines and capabilities were part of the tour and demonstrations. Our visitors this time numbered 12 whereas last year we had almost 30 so with today's smaller group, explaining the technology and answering questions was just that much easier.

Here's what I handed out last year; a working part printed on our 3D printer. From the feedback I received today, some of the kids lost these to their fathers once the day was over back in '12......

This year we did something that we hoped was a bit more kid-friendly and less coveted by others in the household. Our CAD Designer, Eric, came up with this ball-in-a-cube. Both the adjustable wrench from last year and the ball have our company logo on them, hidden here to protect the innocent.

Our printer is an Objet 350, uses resin and UV curing to apply accurate layers of material to create models that are amazingly precise and toleranced. Printing entire assemblies, which is what the wrench above actually is, allows for some very accurate and working components, often already assembled as taken from the machine. It's an incredible tool for the development of medical instrumentation and I continue to be impressed with the problems that it helps us sort through.

14 comments:

Martha April 25, 2013 at 7:50 PM
Wow. I would really enjoy touring a company that does what you are doing. It's something a person has to actually see in action, I think.
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayApril 25, 2013 at 8:19 PM
The bright UV light, the whirring of the carriage and the sound of the printer heads all make for mesmerizing observation of the printer doing its thing.

I think Eric and I did a nice job of exposing the kids to CAD as well as CAM, following an example of one of our products from the early design phase to a working prototype.
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TrobairitzApril 25, 2013 at 8:49 PM
When watching the TV series Eureka I would see 3D printed used in the show and they just amaze me. Cool that you guys use one.

Maybe amaze isn't the right word, add baffle to it too.
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UnknownApril 25, 2013 at 8:51 PM
Coop:

that is a neat machine. we have an autocad programmer for our Plasma Cutter. He makes it look easy

I like that cube with the ball inside. It reminds me of those Ivory carvings

bob
Riding the Wet Coast
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Back RoadApril 26, 2013 at 5:33 AM
Hi Coop,

What a fascinating machine. I have read about them and have seen them in publications. What fun it would be to be turned loose with such a tool, some time, and your imagination!
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RichardMApril 26, 2013 at 6:22 PM
That looks pretty cool. How hard is the plastic? Is it only used for prototyping and maybe to make molds or is it hard enough to machine?
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Dar April 26, 2013 at 11:22 PM
That is incredible! Must give you a lot of satisfaction working there creating cool stuff.
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VStar LadyApril 27, 2013 at 9:03 PM
Coop - technology today is amazing ... I can't imagine what tomorrow will bring.
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"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)