UA, Pima Community College, and NTMA team up to offer machining skills

Ed Stiles
Dec. 10, 1999




"We need to teach our students more hands-on skills," says aerospace and mechanical engineering (AME) Professor Erdogan Madenci. "Theory is vital for engineering students, but they also have to have the hands-on experience to go with it."

Madenci hopes to build a machining center in the AME department to give mechanical and aerospace engineering students experience in programming and operating today's complex computer-driven machining tools.

The department took its first big step in that direction during fall semester by initiating a new course in collaboration with Pima Community College and a Tucson company called Competitive Engineering, which is representing the National Tooling and Machining Association (NTMA).

The course, AME 210 (Integrated Design and Manufacturing with Pro/E), was taught at the UA by Madenci, Pima Community College instructor Tommy Salazar, Competitive Engineering engineer Dave Hodgson and Todd Anderson who recently graduated with a doctorate degree from UA in mechanical engineering

The course, which included 10 students from UA and 10 from Pima College, focused on the integration of design and manufacturing with a CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machining system.

During the course, students designed a part using Pro/E software. Then they produced the part by driving a CNC machine with their Pro/E program. The CNC machine has a 20-tool magazine and can tap, drill, cut, contour and do just about any 3-D machining operation except for extensive lathe work.

Don Martin, president of Competitive Engineering and a member of the AME Industrial Advisory Council, first suggested the course because he felt that the new engineering graduates he hires are strong on theory but lack sufficient hands-on experience with sophisticated machining tools. His company donated the CNC machine being used for this course to UA.

"Industry will benefit from this course because we are producing students who can step in and go to work right away without a lot of additional training," Salazar says. Pima Community College students who are studying for an associates degree in machine tool technology also benefit from the course because they learn about engineering design from the UA instructors.

Madenci adds that the course also gives Pima College students a close look at the AME program and that he hopes that some of them will enroll as UA engineering students after they complete their two-year program at Pima.

Hodgson, who was on loan from Competitive Engineering for eight hours each week, is a CNC programmer. "I work with this technology constantly and handle all sorts of parts; so the students in this course are learning from someone who does this kind of work every day."

The course will be taught again during spring semester, and Madenci hopes it soon will be offered to AME students as an alternative to the traditional computer-aided graphics course that all sophomores now take.

"This course not only incorporates the graphics component, but it also adds in the machining component, which provides skills that are very valuable for our students when they graduate and go into industry," Madenci says.

For more information, e-mail Erdogan Madenci at madenci@u.arizona.edu or call 621-6113.



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