Parsons High School senior Chris Hamby held the controller to the M10IA Fanuc industrial robot in his hands, and followed the directions of Derek Fentress to input the codes to program the robot occupying a sizable portion of the school’s industrial lab.
The other students in the classroom looked on as the robot sprung to life. The Fanuc’s mechanical arm reached and adjusted, and the laser pointer at its end began to trace the path of the line maze drawn out on the paper laying on the table before it.
The simple programming training exercise is just the beginning of the “many cool things” the students can program the robot to do with the laser, PHS CADD drafting/robotics instructor Bruce Rea said.
What students can program the robot to do is pretty unlimited. Programming depends on what it is you want the robot to help with. For instance, a smaller machine like what the high school has, when working for an industry, may be programmed to pick up empty bags and place them on a spout in order for the bags to be filled with something like dog food or cement.
Each time you want to alter the task the robot is performing, you have to reprogram it, which provides students with plentiful learning opportunities.
“In the future, we are going to combine our little benchtop VEX robots and set up a pick-and-place operation,” Rea said. “Anything repetitive is what these robots were created to do, to replace people doing repetitive things. I can see them coming up with all kinds of things.”
The Fanuc was donated to the school by Magnum Systems, to help provide students with hands-on, real world experience with robots in use in industry today. Magnum Systems designs, manufactures and integrates material handling systems. The robot had only put in 124 working hours.
“So, it is basically new,” Rea said. “The reason they donated it is because we went to a larger size robot out there.”
It’s an incredible gift to the school, given “the robot has a pretty reasonable street value,” Rea said. “This is pretty unique for a high school.”
A special frame was built to allow the robot to clear the shorter rear entry doors of the industrial lab at the high school. Rea said the robot really needs to be on a taller frame to have full range of operation, but they are compensating for the difference. Maintenance personnel recently ran power to the room to supply the 440 volts the robot requires. All Rea and the students then needed was Fentress.
Fentress began at Magnum Systems just out of high school, working in assembly, where they assemble the machines they supply to industry.
“It’s all automated, so when you are in assembly, you’re actually learning quite a bit. I don't know how long he was in assembly, but then he was offered a service tech position. Those guys, once a machine is built out here and delivered and they have an issue, they send these guys out. So it kind of evolved. Since a lot of the systems have robots, he went up to Detroit to a Fanuc training facility and got trained on programming, so if a customer calls and they have a robot, then the techs can handle the programming as well. We program them at Magnum before the system goes out, but when they install the system, they have to tweak the program. That’s what these guys do.”
It is rare Fentress is in Parsons. He is usually on the road. He made time for the students though, on the first day of their Spring Break.
Plans are for Fentress to return in a couple of weeks to help take students to the next level.
“So the advantage for students today is there is already a program in the robot. What they are really doing is tweaking the program. That’s where we start. The goal today was to safely power it to run through the motions and then save the program. When he comes back in a few weeks we are going to start showing them how to make their own programs,” Rea said. “If they can figure out the programming on the laser right now, they will be able to do the programming for the pick-and-place operation.”
Another student stepped up beside Fentress and was handed the controller. This was how six students chose to spend the first day of their spring break.
“I think it’s really cool,” said Hamby, who plans to major in computer technical engineering in college next year.
Hamby being the only senior, Rea said all the juniors and sophomores will have ample opportunities next year to program the robot. He is excited to see what the students can do.
“It’s going to be fun next year,” Rea said.