On August 12th and 13th the NPUST Department of Mechanical Engineering hosted a two-day summer camp on “Having Fun Building a New Generation of Smart Production”, attracting 20 participants from vocational high schools in the Kaohsiung and Pingtung area. Through experiential activities including robot arm chess, robot arm engraving and automated flower watering and other activities the students learned about integrated electrical and mechanical control, robot arm control. They also had a chance to learn about methods used in precision mechanized production processes and see how interesting production can be when smart technologies are applied.
Professor Wei-Hua Lu of the Department of Materials Engineering expressed hopes that through the experiential learning camp the students would be able to strengthen their practical abilities. He explained that they “are coordinating with the Ministry of Education’s new syllabus for the 2019 Academic Year with the aim of allowing the high-tech sector to cooperate with technical universities, so that when students graduate, they will be more equipped to compete in the job market.”
Assistant Professor Ching-Shui Chang of the Department of Mechanical Engineering added that “many vocational high school students are not very clear about what they are interested in or what they are learning about. Through the camp we are able to help them develop clearer goals for their future choices.”
A student from Neipu Senior Agricultural-Industrial Vocational High School expressed his satisfaction with the camp, explaining that “the machines and subject matter at schools are often focused on traditional methods, but at NPUST we were able to see new types of equipment and learn about advanced machinery. The fully automated, smart production methods we got to witness also gave us new ideas about future studies and employment.”