BRTC Hosts its First Arkansas SkillsUSA Competition

Black River Technical College (BRTC) hosted its first Arkansas SkillsUSA Additive Manufacturing Competition Thursday.

Student teams, made up of two students in each team, designed an additive manufacturing part from a blueprint provided by the BRTC Machine Tool Technology Instructor Rick Barker. The teams used either Fusion 360 or SolidWorks software to design a customized part. Each student kept a journal of the process citing how they took each step, if any mistakes were made, and anything they learned along the way.

After which they uploaded their design via USB or SD card to an Ender 3D printer. The printers took approximately two hours to print each part. The teams then produced a presentation that they performed in front of a panel of three judges.

The first-place winning team in the post-secondary competition was BRTC Machine Tool Technology students Jonathan Moody and Jakob Barnhill. The first-place winning team in the secondary competition was BRTC Career and Technical Center students Piggott High School junior Aaron Mauldin and Pocahontas High School senior Hank DuBois. The second-place winning team in the secondary competition was NEAITC students Paragould High School junior Chandle Davis and Jonesboro High School senior Dylan Goad.

Winners will travel to the Arkansas SkillsUSA conference in Hot Spring April 12^th through 14^th to accept their medals from Arkansas SkillsUSA.

There were also two prize levels; gold, and silver. Gold received a state-of-the-art 3D printer, and silver received a lower level 3D printer, provided by the competitions sponsors Southern Cast Products, Jonesboro Tool & Die, and Erosion Technology Inc.

Southern Cast Products (SCP) is owned by Doug Irmie. Southern cast provides cutting edge solutions including robo-molding, foundry, metallurgy, and iron casting as well as using robot casting and rapid prototyping.  The facility is set up to design, alloy aluminum parts, machine the parts and ship directly to the customer. SCP is the only machine shop designed to efficiently run all aspects.

Erosion Technologies Inc. (ETI) is owned by Waylan Deen. Students saw a smaller number of machines, though just as important, as ETI is set up for specialized and very close tolerances serving a niche category of machining. They serve the automotive, aerospace, energy, food, medical and die/mold industries. ETI specializes in CNC milling, two and four axis wire EDM, and small hole EDM.

Jonesboro Tool & Die (JTD) is owned by Shannon Lenderman. Students saw multiple machines in action including a blanchard grinder, punch press, CNC lathe and mill, boring mills, laser cutting machines, and wire EDM machines. JTD is a state-of-the-art facility that has cornered the market in Northeast Arkansas.

The Machine Tool Technology program consists of a wide variety of machining. Machinists and Toolmakers design and create prototypes, fixtures, jigs, and tooling/dies from which most metal and other manufactured items are made, which includes large heavy machinery to small hand tools. Working in a modern, fully-equipped machine shop, students in the machine tool technology program gain the knowledge and skills needed to cut, machine, mill/turn, metals and 3d print polymers/carbon/onyx when regarding NIMS assigned projects.

This high-precision trade requires development of high demand skills in the use of hand tools, precision measuring instruments, testing equipment, and basic, automatic, and computer-numerically-controlled (CNC) machine tools and programming. The program also covers heat treating tool steel and alloying material, as well as accident prevention, leadership, and quality control.

For more information on BRTC”s Machine Tool Technology program contact Rick Barker at (870)248-4139 or email him at rick.barker@blackrivertech.edu.