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The Florida Regional Manufacturers Associations (RMAs) met last week at the 25th Annual Florida Sterling Conference. The conference is recognized as one of the best in the nation for practical learning in all areas of leadership and management systems. The RMA’s half day meeting and workshop was facilitate and hosted by FloridaMakes. FloridaMakes is a public private partnership supported by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) within the Department of Commerce with the mission to strengthen Florida’s manufacturing companies. The meeting focused on values and strengths that could be shared and leveraged amongst the associations to grow their organizations. Association directors, business advisors, and current officers worked and networked with one another together and with the FloridaMakes staff. Summaries of strengths and action items will be distributed and the RMA’s will use them for focus topics at their monthly conference calls. FLATE works closely with the RM...

FLATE offers several professional development opportunities that are designed to strengthen teachers’ skills and provide them with educational resources for their students. This summer, FLATE is offering hands-on training workshops for middle and high school teachers. These workshops will cover Lego EV3 processors, functional robot building instructions, programming with EV3 software, programming with EV3 sensors and logic, and NAO robot programming demonstrations.  All workshops are free of charge. The first workshop for teachers was hosted on May 31 and was an introductory lesson in Lego Robotics. The next teachers workshops will be on July 13 (Intro to Lego Robotics), and July 14 (Intermediate Lego Robotics). All workshops will run from 8:30 a.m.-3:00 p.m. and will be hosted at Hillsborough Community College Brandon Campus in room BSSB 218. Teachers located in Hillsborough County may register for the workshops on the district website, and teachers outside of Hillsborough County ...

On May 11 and 12, FLATE hosted a Manufacturing Skills Standards Council (MSSC) Partnership workshop which was designed to give educators from across the state and MSSC members the chance to collaborate on curriculum opportunities. The two day teacher workshop was very informative. Nine instructors from high schools and colleges across the state participated. FLATE’s Curriculum Coordinator, Jesse Kokotek was the workshop facilitator, with three guest speakers which included Ted Norman, State Supervisor for Engineering & Technology Education Neil Reddy Executive Director of MSSC, and Steve Meints Service Department Manager at DC Jaeger Corporation. The educators were also engaged in hands on activities around measurements, precision and accuracy led by Danielly Orozco, FLATE's Associate Director, which they can take back to their classrooms. Quality and measurements are challenging for many students and often require regular practice but is very important skills in all manufactur...

FLATE recently attended The Economic Development Commission (EDC) of Florida’s Space Coast 4th Annual Made in Brevard Expo on May 17. The Expo promoted and celebrated companies and products “Made in Brevard County,” and highlighted the contributions of the county’s over 500 manufacturers to the local economy. The expo historically offers targeted events, presentations and advertisements, enhances individual marketing efforts and fosters a sense of community pride for the diverse products created in the Space Coast. This year’s Made in Brevard Expo was very well attended, with approximately 400 visitors. There were several community and local small manufacturers looking for jobs, or to buy or invest in their products. The EDC is dedicated to attracting new businesses and investors, and expanding existing industry throughout the Space Coast. They also look to promote the Space Coast, influencing change on government laws and regulations, supporting efforts of Space Coast military instal...

This summer, FLATE and Manufacturing USA are hosting a two-part webinar series about the federally funded ManufacturingUSA Institutes! These multi-million dollar public-private partnerships are focused on moving cutting edge technologies from research labs through production into our hands. The first webinar, hosted on May 16, was a panel of education and workforce leaders from the Institutes who gave the audience a snapshot of the futuristic technologies they are working on as well as a high-level overview of their workforce development plan as a backdrop to more details about their activities focused on technician education and training. If you missed this webinar or just want a chance to review it, you can catch up by listening to a recording on Youtube here .  Part two of the webinar series is happening on June 14, and you won’t want to miss it! This webinar will host a number of NSF ATE funded projects and centers that currently have working relationships with one or...

Greco Middle School Capstone Presentation- Shark Tank Every year, as part of their Capstone project, the 8th grade STEM students at Greco Middle School are tasked to exhibit technical expertise to solve challenging problems by producing ideas and products that have the potential to be marketed in the real world. FLATE was invited to serve as a potential investor, or “Shark.” The Sharks’ role was to evaluate the teams’ presentation of the final products, research methodologies, prototypes and business modules/plans. The groups presented their products and deal with the Sharks. It is up to the Sharks whether to invest their money into the business or keep their funds for another opportunity.  Students were required to write a concept paper that described the product, the target market, business and marketing strategy, and compile answers to an “essential questions” worksheet; create an outline of the budget; and make a product prototype. This year there were a total of 10 student te...

Analysis: A new technician at a pump repair company is asked to rebuild positive displacement pumps for a customer that uses their pumps to transport viscous fluids.  The technician knows that for constant viscosity (constant thickness) fluids; a higher pump pressure applies a higher stress on the fluid; the Shear Rate of the fluid always increases linearly with Applied Stress; the fluid's Shear Rate value multiplied by  the fluid's viscosity value always equals the Applied Stress value.  The Tech knows this customer always uses their pumps to move a fluid that gets thicker when the pump applies more pressure on that moving fluid. The tech also reviews the graphic at the red and green data points and, even though there are no values provides on the ordinate (y-axis) or the abscissa (x-axis), is absolutely positive which Repair Kit to use.  The question: Does the Technician select Repair Kit #440?  YES or NO               ...