Page 44 - CNC West Oct-Nov 2021

Lane Community College is one of a growing number of technical schools that recognize the importance of toolpath simulation as an educational tool.
Despite the wide range of learning options, there’s nowhere near enough students to meet employer demand, Caffey explained, a situation that has only gotten worse since the pandemic. “I have a lot of pressure from local businesses to supply them with people that I simply don’t have,” he said. “Because of this, many of them are going directly to the high schools for new employees, which short-changes the student and employer alike. It’s the trade schools that should be the natural bridge for young people wishing to enter the workforce.”
RETHINKING REMOTE
Caffey has been working to change this unfortunate turn of events. Shortly after the outbreak started and he was forced to send his students home, the school equipped them with laptop computers, each with a seat of Mastercam installed. Because VERICUT offers cloud- based licenses, all Caffey had to do was provide each student with templates that include virtual representations of the different machines and the cutting tools needed for each one.
“They could then just program the part in Mastercam and load the code into VERICUT,” said Caffey. “If someone ran into problems, they could share their screen with me and we’d work it out together. I was constantly amazed at how effective it was as a learning tool. More importantly, it gave us a fighting chance to keep the class going.”
Caffey has first-hand experience with toolpath verification software. Before starting as a full-time instructor at LCC, he would teach nights and work during
the day at an area machine shop; even though he is fluent in reading and writing G-code, he found that VERICUT made the job easier.
“I was glad to have access to it through my school laptop,” he said. “If I came across a legacy program that didn’t make sense to me, I’d load it up and do a quick simulation, just to see what was going on. It was quite handy to have at my disposal.” He hears similar tales from his students. “Anytime someone comes in wondering about a program, we put it in VERICUT and simulate the toolpaths. Suddenly, the code starts making sense to them. They can also play around with the program— changing a line here or tweaking something there—and immediately see what effect that will have on the part, the cycle time, and whether it’s going to cause a crash. You can’t do this in a CAM system.”
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CNC WEST October/November 2021
As most machine shops today can attest, knowledge of robotics and advanced automation is a valuable asset for any aspiring manufacturing technician.