RAMTEC is Preparing the Next Generation in Robotics

The robot­ics divi­sion is advanc­ing at ridicu­lous­ly fast speeds, quick­ly becom­ing enveloped in smart soft­ware, sen­sors, and EOATs. Yet, as intel­li­gent as these tech­nolo­gies are becom­ing, they still depends on human capa­bil­i­ty to help and over­see dai­ly oper­a­tion. Sophis­ti­cat­ed soft­ware ulti­mate­ly depends on inter­face with humans. They still need to be pro­grammed. All of this reflects the fact that edu­ca­tion of these skills to the ris­ing gen­er­a­tion, the ones who will be even more immersed in tech­nol­o­gy then we are, is so very impor­tant. It is imperative. 

Enter RAMTEC. The Robot­ics & Advanced Man­u­fac­tur­ing Tech­nol­o­gy Edu­ca­tion Col­lab­o­ra­tive, locat­ed in Mar­i­on, Ohio, is work­ing hard to do just that. They are work­ing hard to bring need­ed robot­ic man­u­fac­tur­ing skills by teach­ing pro­gram­ming with a vari­ety of man­u­fac­tur­ers such as Fanuc, Motoman, and Uni­ver­sal Robots (col­lab­o­ra­tive series). 

“It’s impor­tant that kids start under­stand­ing the con­cept of robot­ics,” says Ritch Ramey, RAMTEC Engi­neer­ing Coor­di­na­tor. ​“We’re going to see it expand prob­a­bly ten­fold in the use of robots over the next 15 to 20 years. They should at least know the basics of robotics.”

Pro­gram­ming of robots and the details of the entire soft­ware plat­forms, is a heavy part in the cur­ricu­lum at RAMTEC. So, all nine RAMTEC sites in Ohio will enable stu­dents to com­plete the soft­ware train­ing to earn the fol­low­ing credentials:

Fanuc Han­dling Tool Oper­a­tion and Pro­gram­ming certification

Yaskawa Motoman DX100 Basic Pro­gram­ming certification

Cer­ti­fied SOLID­WORKS Associate

Auto CAD Cer­ti­fied Professional

Offline pro­gram­ming, help­ing to keep the robots con­stant­ly online, is also a very valu­able knowl­edge tool to car­ry. So RAMTEC teach­es stu­dents using vir­tu­al soft­ware with ROBOGU­IDE or Moto­Sim.

Addi­tion­al­ly, stu­dents will learn the nec­es­sary build­ing blocks for future engi­neers or robot­ics tech­ni­cians, such as robot­ic weld­ing, PLCs hydraulics, pneu­mat­ics, CNCs,computer-aided design, 3D print­ing, and expect­ed to be added soon are vision and the Cis­co platform. 

There are mul­ti­ple oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­duct hands-on train­ing with robots as there is typ­i­cal­ly a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio. Stu­dents can prac­tice using the mobile edu­ca­tion cards and with large pay­load robots. Most of the train­ing is done on a teach pen­dant, which is rare and a huge advan­tage when com­pared to all of the oth­er robot­ic edu­ca­tion options. 

Com­pa­nies also need those trained in robot­ics to design and engi­neer new sys­tems for man­u­fac­tur­ing cus­tomers. They can learn these skills from RAMTEC, where high school and adult stu­dents will be able to train with sim­u­la­tors and real indus­tri­al robots to gain impor­tant expe­ri­ence that will take them far in the man­u­fac­tur­ing workplace.

As you can see, RAMTEC is doing an incred­i­ble job of keep­ing up with the quick­ly advanc­ing and inter-con­nect­ed indus­tri­al world. ​“Our stu­dents have to do exact­ly what the indus­try peo­ple do,” says Ramey, an instruc­tor. ​“The same amount of time, same assign­ments, same e‑learning, and same tests to get their cre­den­tial­ing.” For­tu­nate­ly, the Ohio Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion is beyond sup­port­ive and help­ing RAMTEC thrive by gra­cious­ly giv­ing them a third round of Straight A grants, adding up to $6 mil­lion total. 

RAMTEC hopes to con­tin­ue extend­ing its loca­tions and its growth and devel­op­ment in career devel­op­ment for advanced man­u­fac­tur­ing and robot­ics. Its ulti­mate goal is to help close the skills gap in automa­tion by teach­ing stu­dents of all ages and skill lev­els how to best oper­ate and evolve with the robot­ics revolution. 

It is easy to see that the fac­to­ry of the future is quick­ly advanc­ing, grow­ing, and evolv­ing. As tech­nol­o­gy con­tin­ues to devel­op and reshape the way the world con­quers automa­tion man­u­fac­tur­ing, RAMTEC is step­ping up to the plate to maek sure that stu­dents are ready to han­dle the nec­es­sary job tasks of the future. 

At Robots​.com, we are proud to be near this incred­i­ble learn­ing cen­ter. For any ques­tions about automa­tion, please feel free to con­tact our team of experts at Robots​.com. We are ready to pro­vide you with more infor­ma­tion, con­tact us online or at 877−762−6881 today!