DEARBORN, Mich. — The Society of Manufacturing Engineers
(SME) announced that General Motors will sponsor its fifth annual
Bright Minds Mentor Program. As a part of the program, 50 Orlando School
Districts' high school students will participate in the customized program while
attending the SME RAPID 2008 Conference & Exposition at Disney's Coronado
Springs on May 21, 2008. Since 2003, the SME program's ongoing mission
has been to give promising technology-oriented high school students
opportunities to learn about additive manufacturing and rapid development
technologies from industry-expert mentors.
The Bright Minds Mentor Program originated from SME's Rapid Technologies &
Additive Manufacturing Community in 2003 and is led by a distinguished panel
of dedicated SME members and volunteers.
One of these leaders is General Motors Senior Researcher, Patrick Spicer. "We
see this as a great opportunity to get students interested in technical fields
that are crucial to the automotive industry like engineering and
manufacturing. That's one of the reasons why we're glad to be a part of this
program. General Motors is always looking for talented people with strong
backgrounds and expertise in technical areas."
This year's Bright Minds Mentor Program will kick off with an overview by
industry consultant and analyst Terry Wohlers of Wohlers Associates, Inc.
and over the course of the day, these students will attend conference
sessions, tour exhibits featuring computer aided drawing demonstrations, and
learn rapid technology's influence on dental and medical applications as well
as aerospace industry advancements. In particular, some of these sessions
will focus on exciting uses of rapid prototyping to build craniofacial and
orthopedic implants as well as 3D scanning processes for burn victims.
At the program's end, students are encouraged to complete surveys of what
they learned and provide feedback. Finally, each participating high school's
library will receive a CD-ROM highlighting SME RAPID 2008.information
Several of the top prototyping equipment manufacturers also will loan
equipment and provide materials to the schools for the next school year.
This practice encourages the students to use the equipment, create models
and get first-hand experience with the equipment that they learned about at
RAPID 2008. The exposure to the technology is an added bonus to the
schools participating. They are allowed to test drive the equipment and the
students gain valuable experience in a prospective career field.
"I really enjoy mentoring," said Gary S. Rabinovitz, RP (Rapid) Lab Manager,
Reebok International. "After being in the rapid industry for almost 10 years
now, it is a pleasure to share the knowledge that I have gained with the
future industry leaders. I'm very happy that I have been involved for the past
two years and would love the opportunity to continue."
And while the non-profit SME developed and manages the Bright Minds
Program, Executive Director and General Manager Mark C. Tomlinson
acknowledges that its continuation would not be possible without support
from global manufacturers like General Motors.
www.sme.org/brightminds
::Design World::