mechatronics, house, construction

Just a click and… voilà! Your new house!

mechatronics, house, industry 4.0

3-D printing still surprises us with its applications. It seems that there is no limit for such technology and makes our impossible dreams, possible.

One of the latest constructions we can be proud of is the building of the first 3D-printed house in Germany, specifically in Beckum, North Rhine-Westphalia. The printed building is a two-store detached house with a living area of about 80 m2 per floor and is made up of triple-skin cavity walls, which are filled with an insulating compound.

mechatronics, house, construction

This printing process offers designers a high degree of freedom when they are designing buildings, leaving the great financial costs behind. During the printing process, the printer takes into account the pipes and connections for water, electricity, etc. that are to be laid later on. An amazing fact is that the printer can operate in such a way that technicians can carry out work within the printing area while printing is in progress. This means that manual work, such as the installation of empty pipes and connections, can be easily integrated into the printing process.

It is of high importance to conceive the benefits of this process. The use of sustainable materials and therefore in compliance with regulations offers a viable solution to residency issues.

Source: https://www.designboom.com/technology/peri-first-3d-printed-residential-building-germany-10-09-2020/

mechatronics, robotics

“Who said I can’t walk?”

One of the major contributions of science is serving the humans’ needs. Disabilities make a person feel constrained and fully dependent to his closest people. However, French researchers at biomedical research centre Clinatec and the University of Grenoble claim that they had overcome this problem in a premature, still functional, approach.

A tetraplegic 30-year-old man was able to move all his limbs using a revolutionary mind-controlled exoskeleton fir the first time after he was paralyzed from the shoulders down after falling 15m at a nightclub in 2015. The system, which works by recording and decoding brain signals, was trialed in a two-year study.

The 30-year-old man underwent a surgery to place two implants over the parts of the brain that control movement. Sixty-four electrodes on each implant read his brain activity and beamed the instructions to a computer. With the use of a software the brainwaves are read and turned into instructions to control the exoskeleton.

“It was like being the first man on the Moon”, the 30-year-old man mentioned. For one more time science proves that it works for the improvement of patient’s life providing them a quality life with autonomy.

source: https://bit.ly/3kPH2KK

robotics, mechatronic

The importance of training by Universal Robots

For Universal Robots, a Danish company specializing in automation and production of cobots, training has particular importance. 

For this reason, in 2017 it created its Academy, with which it provides courses that have trained more than 100,000 users over the last three years.

The online modules – which form the basis of training in the use of UR cobots – are nine and available in 16 different languages. All modules are completely free. The leftover courses (not free), on the other hand, are held at the 51 official training centres around the world. Universal Robots’ content program is also full of webinars delivered monthly.

At this address it is possible to consult the calendar of classroom courses:

https://academy.universal-robots.com/in-class-training/ 

The NewMetro project as well is encompassing the ideation and generation of a series of multi-modal training modules, to be tested and validated in five Countries and then made available to EU educational institution and students.

Source: https://www.meccanicanews.com/2020/09/01/universal-robot-academy-scuola-cobot/ 

mechatronics, robotics

CIS launches two new courses in mechatronics

On Monday 21 September in Reggio Emilia (Italy) CIS, Unindustria Reggio Emilia’s service company for business management, presented two innovative post-diploma courses that promise to form some of the most popular job profiles on the market.

In detail, the courses are “product technician in the system of plastics processing” and “plant installation and maintenance technician 4.0”.

The first has the objective of preparing students to work in the production sectors of the plastics industries; the second aims to train resources able to organize the installation and maintenance service of robotic plants and systems by applying industrial automation concepts based on the 4.0 model. Both training courses have 20 seats and have been designed in collaboration with important companies in the area.

The program of these training activities includes classroom theory, workshops, company testimonials, guided tours, internships and a final exam. The courses are completely free thanks to the Emilia-Romagna Region funds, and the candidates will be selected through a technical-scientific aptitude test and an individual motivational interview.

The presentation event on Sept 21st saw the presence of Filippo Di Gregorio, General Manager of Unindustria, Alberto Rocchi, President of the Mechatronics Club, Marco Bedogni, President of the Gomma Plastiche Group, as well as former students who told about their experience with these courses.

CIS is a full Partner of the New Metro project on Mechatronics co-financed by the European Union.

source: https://nextstopreggio.it/presentati-i-corsi-post-diploma-di-cis-due-indirizzi-innovativi-meccatronica-4-0-e-materie-plastiche/

mechatronics, Industry 4.0

Problem solving: a key skill in Industry 4.0.

In industry 4.0, knowing how to identify an anomaly quickly is very important, because it allows to intervene promptly and, if necessary, to shut down the line, with obvious economic savings. Knowing how to do this depends on three factors: essential mechanical and electromechanical preparation; an in-depth practical experience; a systemic mentality aimed at methodically analysing phenomena and identifying the causes.

Obviously, in some cases, the intervention requires an immediate – even if temporary – solution (quick-fix), to speed up the resumption of a production process, or to limit any damage to machinery and people. This kind of interventions requires high professionalism, ability to quickly analyse the situation and resistance to stress. Experience also helps in troubleshooting because it allows to find solutions to a problem that was already experienced. Nonetheless excessive trust in experience could reduce the ability to see beyond and completely understand a phenomenon.

In general, however, continuous staff updating on how to identify and repair faults, both provisional and definitive, also through the simulation of real cases, constitute the most effective form of training.

New Metro is including in its aims not only state-of-the-art education of student of technical schools but also re-skilling and updated training of workers, together with Work-based-learning and On-the-job-training, to be carried out alternatively live and through virtual mobility.

 

Source: https://www.meccanicanews.com/2020/10/02/il-problem-solving-nellindustria-4-0/

mechatronic, vet, kets

Do we possibly live at the dawn of “robotic art” era?

Are we really ready to put the paintbrushes down and instruct robots to paint instead of us?

mechatronic, vet, kets

A recent study in open-access journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI  has shown that we may witness  such a thing in the near future. The robots can be instructed to move on a canvas leaving colour trails in their wake. The artist selects areas of the canvas to be painted with a certain colour. Afterwards, the team of robots collaborate-interact to create the specific colours and generally the whole picture that they are instructed to paint.

The researchers found that even when some robots didn’t have access to all the colours required to create the assigned colour, they were still able to work together and approximate the colour reasonably well. One of the benefits of this process is that the robot swarm can be controlled by the instructor in real-time while painting, who don’t have to instruct each one of the robots how to move or even worry about the colours available to each of them.

“The intersection between robotics and art has become an active area of study where artists and researchers combine creativity and systematic thinking to push the boundaries of different art forms,” said Dr. María Santos of the Georgia Institute of Technology. “However, the artistic possibilities of multi-robot systems are yet to be explored in depth”, she added. “The multi-robot team can be thought of as an “active” brush for the human artist to paint with, where the individual robots (the bristles) move over the canvas according to the colour specifications provided by the human,” explained Santos.

However, we maybe should wonder if art can be left on the hands of machines. Art is primarily an expression of emotions and thoughts and not a set of instructions. It does not follow norms and guidelines, but instead it’s a way of setting you free!

Source: https://bit.ly/2GTAlbY

vet, kets

EUROPEAN DESIGN WORKSHOP FOR THE HIGHER TECHNICIAN OF MECHATRONIC SYSTEMS

from October 15 – 2020

FC SISTEMI FORMATIVI CONFINDUSTRIA S.C.P.A.

Vocational training

Online conferences, meetings and webinar

Tags: Apprenticeship, Distance learning

15th October 3 PM: this is the day when a group of stakeholders from Italy, Germany, Poland, Latvia, Austria, Spain, and Greece will meet to decide together the characteristics that the pilot phase of a new training path for mechatronics must respect.
Designed in the NEW METRO project, the High Technician of Mechatronics profile is about to be testing in 5 target countries. This challenge is consistent with the Digital Education Action Plan 2021/2027.

Discover the Erasmus + project of this organization:

The NEW METRO project is aimed at defining and supporting the development of skilled resources for advanced manufacturing processes as well as the entire Industry 4.0 effort in place across Europe.

Newmetro logo
mechatronic, erasmus+

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vet, kets

School and company, a strategic and necessary alliance

The web portal ilSicilia.it has published an interesting article on an extremely topical issue: the need for an alliance between school and businesses in training not only for the future but also for the present. The mayor of Palermo, Leoluca Orlando, called it a “language pact”. 

The mayor, together with the regional councillor for education Roberto Lagalla, also defined the agreement between culture and operators in the industrial sector as vital to get out of the crisis generated by Covid-19.

During the event ‘School at the time of Covid-19’, organised by the Mechatronics Production District Sicilia in Palermo, the importance of creating a strong and direct link between the training and industrial supply chain, at the basis of the strategy to get out of the crisis, was stressed.

The president of Mechatronics Production District, Antonello Mineo, who during the lockdown led the companies in the area towards conversion for the production of masks, also spoke out on the same concept, sending an appeal to the institutions to make them aware of the issue. 

Source: https://www.ilsicilia.it/la-scuola-ai-tempi-del-covid-una-necessaria-alleanza-tra-comunita/

kihler, mechatronics

She, Kohler: the event to promote engineering careers among women.

The Kohler company (https://www.kohlerpower.it/), a partner in the NewMetro project specialized in the production of engines for off-road applications, is organizing “She, Kohler”, an event dedicated to engineering, mechatronics, electronics, energy, materials, automation, automotive, aerospace and biomedical female students, to be held on Oct 13th, 2020 and aimed at promoting engineering careers among women.

The opportunity will also be useful to give visibility to the company, with the possibility to apply for internships and open positions at Kohler. The event, which will be held online on the Instagram platform, will be structured in a series of three meetings, in the form of live private interviews, to be held on 13 – 15 – 20 October from 2.30 pm to 3 pm.

To attend the event, IG User Name and CV must be sent to alessandro.scaloni@kohler.com

Kohler is a very procative participant to the NewMetro project and they will also be hosting pilot sites to validate the educational approach towards mechatronical vocational careers, a specialization highly requested from the market.

 

Source: https://www.salernotoday.it