Field Trip Report

Friday saw the MED program visiting Utility Vault in Auburn, WA. Utility Vault is the leading manufacturer of precast concrete products in the utility, environmental and transportation markets. Known for their quality products and exceptional customer service, Utility Vault also showed us the side of the company committed to their employees.

The MED students were greeted by a team of four employees; Jeff Gallup, Mark Walker, Fred Perez and Steve Hiester. Each helped to provide an informative presentation about the design and production of their precast concrete products.

Jeff Gallup and the engineering staff provided each student with an example drawing package they would typically generate for one of their custom products. Jeff explained each page of the packet and the process going into its development. Through this example, the students saw exactly UV's product designs are best communicated to their production team and their customers. (Above: Susan Sopher and Tim Carroll review designs for a custom stormwater detention vault built by Utility Vault)

Following the design presentation, our Utility Vault hosts divided the class into three groups and escorted them through the entire production facility. Each group toured the production area, the mixing room, quality control, metal fabrication, inventory yard and more.

(Right: Under the guidance of Utility Vault's Sales and Marketing Associate, Fred Perez, student Steve Schauer feels the consistency of freshly poured concrete.)

(Below: Students tour the main production floor as Fred Perez explains the layout and work flow.)


Utility Vault went out of their way to make the MED students feel welcome and to share their expertise with us. A heartfelt thank you goes out to Jeff, Mark, Steve and Fred!

Fall Quarter!

After a nice long three week break, we returned to classes on September 24th. Fall sees a lot of changes brewing at CPTC. Our new Student Center celebrates its Grand Opening on October 23rd. The Bookstore, Expressions and the Floral Shop have already taken up occupancy. On October 11th the Okinawa Taiko Drummers performed for three different audiences in the lobby area, so already it's proving to be a key facility on our campus.

Closer to home, the Mechanical Engineering Design program enrolled 4 new students!

From the left are Dan, Kevin, Jason and Caitlin. All four graduated from high school in the spring and chose Clover Park Technical College as the next rung in their educational ladder. They have been excellent additions to the program. Each bring a unique and refreshing energy to the classroom and we are excited to have them. Welcome!!!

Stay tuned in the coming weeks as the M.E.D. program takes field trips to Pacific Reserach Labs on Vashon Island on October 26th and to Utility Vault in Auburn on November 30th. I'll try to post recaps of each visit soon after.

New Evening and Weekend Classes!!!

In an effort to better serve our community, Clover Park Community College is now offering night and weekend classes catering to working professionals. Many programs have developed Certificate and A.A.T. Degree options obtainable by taking night and weekend courses. Among the programs now offering night options are Automotive, Aviation, Business, Design, Early Care, Health, Manufacturing and Retail Sales.

In addition, M.E.D.'s sister program Architectural Engineering Design, will offer their A.A.T. Degree program (ARC 100) in the evenings. ARC 100 will meet from 5:30 - 9:30 Monday through Friday. A Civil Engineering Design program will be offered as well, meeting from 5:30 - 9:30 M-W-F and 6:00 - 9:00 on Tuesday and Thursday.

If you're interested in any of the above options, please visit the college website linked to the left, or go directly to the Fall Schedule.

Happy Graduations!

Congratulations to Bruce Baker! A graduate with honers of the M.E.D. program at the end of Winter Quarter, he participated in CPTC's Graduation Ceremony on June 15th.

Tim Carroll also participated, recieving his Welding Certificate. This, only a couple of days after graduating from high school! Way to go, Tim...it's also great to have you back. We're glad you're continuing your education with CPTC's Mechanical Engineering Design program.

Belated Career Conference Recap...

It's been a busy spring and summer! We're currently trying to pack eleven weeks of course work into a nine week quarter. The students are busier than ever, but I felt I should produce a blog update before too much more time passed by!

We successfully participated in CPTC's Career Conference on May 10th, recieving over 100 guests through the course of the day. All M.E.D. the students participated, either by greeting guests at the classroom door or through classroom demonstrations. Tracy and Carrie are seen here ready to greet guests at the door.

Steve and Tim hold court at the left with a group of guests interested in AutoCAD and other aspects of Mechanical Engineering Design.

In addition to being ready for classroom demonstrations, one group of students were assigned the task of working with Manufacturing Technologies students to document the building of a Stirling Engine. M.E.D. students created detail and assembly drawings while the Manufacturing Technologies students created a physical working model. Guests arriving at the M.E.D. viewed the Stirling Engine prints, then headed to Building 25 to see the working model seen below. This project was the perfect collaboration between the programs. Hopefully only the first of many more to come!

Who Says Engineering Types Can't Be Creative?

In anticipation of our Career Conference, I assigned a group of the students the task of redecorating the display window at the east end of Building 19. I left the concept and design up to them; my only requirement was

that it be completed by today (May 3rd).

Behold! Their completed assignment!

This is one of several "surprise" assignments I've sprung on the class this quarter. It's a very "real world" example of how the best planned schedules have to be altered to accommodate special projects. A customer with a rush job, who is willing to pay a premium price, will often be indulged. As designers and drafters, we must be able to complete these new tasks with minimal impact to our other schedules. This group has done an excellent job of accomplishing just that.

Congratulations Anthony, Brenden, Carrie, Tim and Tracy!

Warmoth Guitars: Field Trip Report

A BIG thank you to Rod Rood at Warmoth Guitars for touring the M.E.D. program through their facility!

Warmoth Guitars produces high quality aftermarket bodies and necks for electric guitars. All their products are machine using CNC milling technology driven by Mastercam. As a class, we were lucky enough to observe both the computer simulation of a guitar body being machined and an actual CNC machining run of one of their guitar bodies.

In addition, the class toured the fret installation, sanding and finishing areas. Rod briefed us on their processes from acceptance of the raw materials, in this case different types of woods, to the finished product. An interesting opportunity for everyone from technical individuals to music enthusiasts!

Thanks again, Rod!

Off and Running in the New Year...

Week 4 of Winter Quarter 2007! After a wacky few weeks, we seem to be in full swing. Three snow delay days, one snow cancellation day and one holiday all consecutively made getting into a routine dificult. But everyone seems to be off to a good start...In the coming weeks, we have two field trips. Our first is on Friday, February 2nd to Warmoth Guitars in Puyallup. Warmoth uses CNC machining technology to manufacture their beautiful electric guitar bodies and necks. We'll get to see this process in action, ask questions of the designers and maybe even learn a thing or two!

MED 158 Beginning AutoCAD - after learning to create lines, circles and other objects, MED 158 students have progressed to layers. The student drawing above shows different types of drawing entities in different colors (i.e. object lines, hidden lines, center lines, etc.) Each of these types of objects lie on their own "layer" and can be assigned separate properties such as color, linetype and lineweight.

If certain layers were to be "turned off", signifying they are not to be displayed, you would still be able to view the remaining layers. To the left, is the same drawing with the center and hidden layers turned off. The object lines of the part are still very visible. Layers are a great tool for drawing and plot management.