The Ohio Board of Regents, an agency that coordinates higher education in the state, has awarded Lorain County Community College (LLLC) $2.5 million to expand an Advanced Digital Manufacturing program with even more three-dimensional printing. The project at the Nord Advanced Technologies Center at LCCC is to cost $5 million to expand an existing building, with the $2.5 million state grant matched by a philanthropic gift.
The Nord Advanced Technologies Centere includes a FabLab, which has already received the highest attention possible when visited in 2010 by President Barack Obama. Now, the new expansion project will enhance some forty-five degrees and certificates in technology.
Upgraded facilities will deepen LCCC’s capacity to educate students in robotics, Computer Numerical Control machining, and network communications, expanding upon the current range of equipment at the Nord Advanced Technologies Center, which presently stations a wide range of advanced technology for training, including: Allen Bradley programmable logic controllers (PLCs), automatic storage and retrieval systems (ASRS), CAD software, banner sensor trainers, computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) laboratory, electronic test equipment, Fanuc and Motoman industrial robots, Pro Engineer software, process control trainers, programmable hydraulic and pneumatic trainers, and a VanDorn 35ton Injection Molding Machine and much more.
Tracy Green, vice president of strategic and institutional development at LCCC said: “We have one 3D printer. This [project] will allow us to expand the space, not only in design space but in production space… This is an expansion of our Advanced Manufacturing Processing degree program. It increases the technology capacity in the area of additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, which is a rapidly growing technology from design to prototype to production of products.”
Green continued: “More traditional ways of manufacturing are about removing material to build a product. 3D printing is the opposite. You’re building the prototype in 2D on software. The 3D printing allows you to take it off the software and send it to a machine that builds it in a 3D form. It can build it with moving parts. You could print a wrench that has a moving gear in it, and the printer will print that wrench with a moving gear—without any other step in the process—which allows you to go from a 2D to 3D in a short period of time. You can test it. If there’s a problem with it, you can subtract out the layers to get down to the process and fix the problem and then build it back up again.”
The grant is part of a total of $16 million for six community colleges to strengthen workforce development education and training from The Ohio Board of Regents
