A Workshop on New Horizons for Next Generation Manufacturing with Robotics Learning Experience

The swift development of manufacturing within the U.S. has generated much interest in various industries. These industries include Food, Electronics, Medical, Energy, and Urban Manufacturing. Due to the traction of interest, large investments have been promoted by commercial and governmental organizations to promote innovative solutions from various disciplines to reduce costs, increase revenue, and remain a global competitor. The workshop provided insight to historical contexts of manufacturing provided by industry experts and displayed the importance of collaborative research from multidisciplinary fields of engineering. A direct correlation to diverse disciplines of engineering was given to display commercial necessity to solve complex problems with effective solutions. Such solutions to manufacturing require experimental studies to justify long term investment. The event was titled “The New Horizons for the Next Generation Manufacturing Workshop.” Students were given various presentations that were followed by a Q&A session. A luncheon was followed to increase industry networking and exchange of information. The hands-on robotics and automation competition proceeded the industry session. Student disciplines included electrical, mechanical, biomedical, computer, and industrial engineering. The competition involved complex problems for robotics and automation. Several 6-axis robots were combined with various sensors and integrated with Arduino to simulate a miniature desktop manufacturing process. The workshop was beneficial to students as it supported diverse solutions to various manufacturing industries and promoted innovation for research and development.