Mechatronics - the new manufacturing assembly line

Sixteen jobs per graduate and a starting salary of twenty-one dollars an hour - a fantasy correct ---- NOT!!!  For their regular noon meeting on Tuesday March 10th members toured the Mechatronics Program at the North Dakota State College of Science.  What is that you ask? Robotics, fluid power, microprocessing based controls, servos and much more - the tools of the modern assembly line.  The program is under the direction of the Dean of Technologies for NDSCS Barbara Bang.

                                    A part of the robotics lab

On Tuesday instructors Shane Suko and Lonnie Wurst toured members around the various laboratories that the program uses to in two years turn high school graduates into modern assembly line technologists.  Currently there are sixteen jobs per graduate and that number is growing.  The starting salary is twenty-ne dollars an hour and Mr.Suko referred to a recent graduate who in his first year out made over seventy thousand dollars.  One of the unique finds in this field is that these technology graduates have more opportunities, not less when the economy crashes as companies are trying to survive by becoming leaner which means automated robotic assembly lines.  The students have sponsor ships and internships available.  Only a few block away ComDel Innovation a major manufacturing facility now starting to manufacture unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) has a need for these technologists and a spokesperson said that they look first at NDSCS. 

          Lonnie Wurst and Shane Suko demonstrate the M-11A Fanuc robots

Instructor Shane Suko explains a part of the SIM lab to Rotarian Brian Quamme

A working model assembly line.  Some Rotarians brought their children so they could see the present.