A high-tech robot dog is helping students in Thomasville learn real-world skills in robotics, coding, and automation as part of a new hands-on training lab at SRTC.
The robot is part of a workforce development push funded by a $65M federal grant through Georgia AIM. Students use the dog to practice coding, geospatial mapping, and programming for real-world manufacturing settings. The lab is open to college students, night learners, and dual-enrolled high schoolers from the region.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
It doesnt bark, but it does teach and students are learning everything from robotics to voice commands with it.
One robot dog is helping prepare students for the future of tech careers.
This robot dog is one of the newest tools inside the Manufacturing Engineering Technology Lab at Southern Regional Technical College.
The lab was built through a partnership with the Georgia AIM grant and a $65 million investment in manufacturing and automation programs.
The robot alone cost $35,000 but instructors say its already paying off in the classroom and beyond.
One, to use in the classroom to kind of mimic the robots that we used in manufacturing,” said Griffith. “So robots in manufacturing have to be programmed and geospatial mapped, and those kinds of settings require those technologies. Well, our students are able to mimic that with this dog and learn those fundamental skills. But also it serves another purpose.”
Ralph Griffith, Interim Dean of Industrial Technology, says the dog is part of a bigger plan to keep learning hands-on.
In this lab, students can take courses in CAD design, precision machining, hydraulics, pneumatics, electrical systems, and more.
And its not just college students, the lab is also opening its doors to local high schoolers.
The MET program, we’re just getting off our feet. We’re just starting this program, and we’re partnering with local high schools that are also involved with some of the grant money that Georgia Tech has offered, and there’s area high schools that will be doing a design-build-race project in an attempt to help feed this program with enrollment, said Griffith.
Ashley Palmer who I spoke to back in May is a STEM Coordinator at Thomasville City Schools. he says theyre already working with SRTC to get students in the lab and trained for high-tech jobs.
He says robots like this one will soon be a normal part of how students learn and how they work.
So the beauty of smart manufacturing, you have machines such as co-bots that work alongside and provide more safety for our workers,” said Palmer. “Let’s say they’re working with a more, you know, dangerous type of product, well this co-bot could be inside of an enclosed area and you have your trained worker actually running that robot from outside of the glass and they’re kept safe, but the students need to have, the workers need to be well trained to use these types of machines. And so in partnership with SRTC and with these companies, we can produce those students that are ready for these higher paying but more technical jobs.”
Griffith says classes are open to everyone, not just Industrial Tech majors, whether you’re on the day or night side.
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