The Portable Manufacturing System Project

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Session 2563 - 968 THE PORTABLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEM PROJECT NAZMI CEM DINCER, Elijah Kannatey-Asibu Jr., Yoram Koren University of Michigan 1. Abstract The Portable Manufacturing System Project (PMSP) is part of the outreach of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (ERC/RMS) at the University of Michigan, and is designed to attract new students to the field of manufacturing. The goals of the program are to expose middle and high school students to manufacturing engineering through a hands-on engineering activity, to provide the opportunity to interact with engineering students, and to motivate the students to consider engineering and technology- related careers. The PMSP cell is composed of a CNC milling machine, a robot, and a personal computer (PC) that controls the entire system. To facilitate simultaneous access of multiple student users, six additional PCs are included in the cell. The PMSP cell and all necessary equipment are setup at all of the participating schools. In this two week long program, students from University of Michigan, introduce basic concepts of manufacturing, computer aided design (CAD), computer aided manufacturing (CAM), and simple computer programming to middle and high school students by using a series of modules. Building upon these skills, the students learn how to use a robot and a milling machine. The program enables students to start a project involving a simple product from the concept and design phase, and take it through the manufacturing stage. Throughout the program, the students work in groups of two, and this helps them to develop their problem solving and teamwork skills. The Portable Manufacturing System Project was initiated in September 2001. Upon it’s implementation in February 2002, the PMSP has worked directly with all of the six middle schools and one of the three high schools in the Ann Arbor Public School District. This program has introduced manufacturing engineering to over 950 students and is planning to impact 500 students in the Ann Arbor school district annually. “Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society of Engineering Education”