Tag: school

Line Vac Helps Students With Automation Projects

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

Over the past year I received a contact from a professor and student combination from Madison Area Technical College inquiring about the sizes available for our Line Vac products.  They were using a 2″ Line Vac in one of their automation class labs and wanted to try something a little bigger for a new project.  The 2″ Line Vac was one they had used in the past on different projects and had always worked well.   The new project however increased the bag size and made the conveyance difficult for the 2″ Line Vac.

The Initial e mail received.
The Initial e mail received after a short conversation.

With the picture below of their current setup and a good understanding that they will be placing three items into a heat sealed bag that is roughly 3″ long and 2″ wide we settled on using the 3″ Aluminum Line Vac at a low pressure to convey the baggies to their secondary function.   As you can see in the video below, the Line Vac is activated by a sensor and operates for just seconds in order to convey the bag of parts successfully to the other side of the machine cell where the bag is then picked and placed by a robotic arm.

The existing 2" Line Vac they had in place.
The existing 2″ Line Vac they had in place.

After the project was completed we received a mention through social media, as well as a brief video showcasing the Line Vac in use.  The video showcases how easy it is to install an EXAIR Line Vac into a tight space where adding other conventional mechanical conveying systems would be considerably more elaborate.  The Line Vac is being controlled via a PLC that energizes a solenoid valve on a timer to convey the package in a matter of seconds.

 

Social Media Contact
Social Media Contact

We are very pleased to see the projects these kids turned out, and the leadership shown by Peter, their instructor. Manufacturing programs such as this one at Madison Area Technical College are important for our economy and for the future of these kids. We’d like to congratulate them all on their accomplishment.

If you have a project you are trying to move products from one point to another, contact us.  If you are a professor, student, or even a mentor to an educational program that would benefit from EXAIR products, please contact me directly.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer Manager
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

Another School Year Means Hard Work Ahead

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

This post may be a little late for some as most schools have already started back for the new year.  My wife’s school starts back on Monday and she is in a new classroom and teaching a new grade this year.  So this meant a good amount of work for me as she had a big idea of what she wanted her new room to look like.

Now when I was in school all the rooms looked the same except the posters on the walls changed.  We never had any rooms that were painted anything other than off-white (maybe it was just dirty white).  Now there are rooms that are painted like a jungle or an ocean to help immerse the students into the learning experience.  Luckily for me my wife is not artistic and she knows I hate painting so she went a little less extreme.

Her deciding factors on the room theme were driven by these bold bulletin boards at one end of the room.  She said all she could think about when she saw them was the circus.  So this year the students in her class will be immersed into the “Greatest Room On Earth” .  The biggest project she had, was to make the wall of windows appear as the entrance to the circus, this meant curtains.  My mother helped her make the curtains and a valance, (I didn’t know what this was until I put it up).  Then my dad and I had the lovely task of figuring out how to hang 30′ worth of curtains.  After a full day of work and only one run to the hardware store we got the final results.   So far some of the kids have seen it and it’s a huge hit.

The only part that didn’t get done was the tight rope.  Now I know what your thinking there’s no way they could pull that off.  The tight rope wasn’t going to be big enough to hold weight but it was going to have a toy on it that would go from one end of the room to the other and also to hold papers.  Maybe we can add that before the end of the year.

The ingenuity that I put into hanging 30 feet of curtains on a wall and ceiling that has no mounting area is the kind of ingenuity all of the Application Engineers here at EXAIR give to your applications every day.  All we need is your big picture and some information and we’ll give you our best idea to make it happen.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

This is no Behavior for Going Back to School

Published on by Kirk EdwardsLeave a comment

Today is the last day of summertime freedom for my kids, school begins tomorrow. It is no longer OK to not know what time it is or sleep until 9:00 or 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning. No more sleeping in a basement fort on a Wednesday night. The daily events and zoo camp and vacation have all been recorded. The excitement created by the ice cream truck is gone…

But my kids are showing no signs of changing their behavior. They spent all day running around with the neighbors with no sense of responsibility for what was upon them. And more power to ’em…carpe diem!

Here are the creatures which greeted me when I got home, in no less-than eight containers from aquariums to bug habitats to jars with holes in the lids: Three big wood bees, two butterflies, one moth, one giant grasshopper, two little green grasshoppers, mating bugs, crickets, a red and black beetle, assorted dead bugs, one cicada and two cicada shells.

 
All in a days work - click for larger image

Along with the creatures were five kids. Four of whom struck me as quite loud compared to hearing co-worker volume levels all day. The fifth was merely quiet due to the kid tribe pecking order of speaking and his inability to shout anything bug related before I put the hush down on the unruly group of entomologists. I found myself thinking if they could only shout out the genus and species of these crawly creatures, they may be on their way to a worthwhile skill. Though I did hear a kid say “we know it’s a moth because it has those feathery antennae and he’s fat”.

I was also pleased that no one inquired further about the mating bugs, regardless of a clear “the birds and the bees” environment (though telling a kid to go ask her mother about it isn’t quite as hard as I make it out to be).

It also struck me that it is a good call to begin school on a Thursday, these kids clearly need a couple of days to adjust their behavior and wrap their heads around a whole week of school. You just don’t say goodbye to summer the same way you greet it – kids spend weeks daydreaming of summer so they greet it like an old friend with whom no time has lapsed and get right into action. They say goodbye with kicking and dragging feet, composing themselves only after it is no longer visible.

As “grown-ups” we can be happy we don’t have to make that slap in the face adjustment, but not so much that we wouldn’t enjoy a couple months off work. It is a slighter adjustment to move out of Cabinet Cooler system season and closer to Static Eliminator season during colder, drier weather ahead. But our kids will find that out soon enough. I am sure none of them is willing to give up that slap in the face adjustment at the end of summer in return for a job. Besides, at some near point in time I will arrive home to frustrated home-working kids and my seize the day opportunity to learn about feathery, fat moths will have been recorded as well.

Here’s to an easy transition back to school kids. Enjoy yourselves.

Kirk Edwards
Application Engineer
KirkEdwards@EXAIR.com
http://twitter.com/exair_ke