Moraine Park Technical College Electromechanical Technology students were awarded new robotics technology after placing first at Lab Midwest’s Team Robotics Competition.
Moraine Park students Anthony Biel of West Bend, Timothy Vukosich of Fond du Lac, and Gregory Van Slyke of Hartford participated in the Team Robotics Competition this fall. The students were presented with the award by Lab Midwest and Fanuc, Dec. 9, at Moraine Park’s Fond du Lac campus.
“The recognition is awesome, and I’m glad we were able to win some new equipment for our program,” Biel said. “I placed second at the competition when I was in high school, so I was really excited when I got the chance to compete again and represent Moraine Park.”
The Team Robotics Competition is part of the Wisconsin Manufacturing & Technology Show– the largest manufacturing technology show in the state. The competition allows high school and college students across Wisconsin to test their robotic programming knowledge and compete against other students using Fanuc technology. Each team was given three hours to complete a set of tasks using a Fanuc Fenceless LR Mate 6-axis robot. The students were judged on their ability to complete the objective, the complexity of their programming, teamwork and general robotics knowledge.
“We appreciate the students’ incredible work preparing and participating in the competition,” Mike Dietrich, vice president of K-12 and training at Lab Midwest, said. “We love providing opportunities for the students to show off their skills, and we’re very thankful to Moraine Park for building our future workforce.”
The students were awarded a PLC/HMI Training System from Rockwell and APT Manufacturing to be used by the Moraine Park Electromechanical program.
“The Electromechanical Technology program plans to use the technology to teach programmable logic controller to industrial robot integration,” said MPTC Electromechanical instructor, Craig Habeck.
Moraine Park’s Electromechanical Technology program is a 2-year associate degree program. In class, students learn how to think critically and use technology to solve problems and program, use and maintain electromechanical and automated equipment. For more information visit morainepark.edu/academics/programs/electromechanical-technology/.
