Southwestern's Mobile Training Unit Is A Wonder
The joy(stick) of welding
By Nate Taylor, The World
COOS BAY -- The Xbox 360 has nothing on the Lincoln Electric VRTEX 360.It's a virtual reality arc welding training solution. But we'll just call it what it is: A video game.
A $50,000 video game.
It comes with a welding mask, but in place of a viewing window is a pair of lenses displaying a virtual environment -- an oil rig or construction project in the desert, for example -- to simulate field welding applications.
Your welding gun is essentially a joystick.
Meanwhile, an instructor views your progress on a monitor, which tallies your score.
It's the ultimate in arcade-style training.
Few in the U.S.
The simulated welding device is one component of Southwestern Oregon Community College's new mobile welding lab, a $400,000 rolling wonder of hardware and software.
The trailer is one of only several in the nation, including one at Montana State University-Billings.
'But nothing is as versatile as this," said Chris Amaral, grant director with SWOCC's welding and fabrication program.
Built by Eugene-based Western Shelter Mobility Systems and paid for with a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, the 36-foot-long fifth wheel is part classroom and part workshop.
Laptop learning
The front half features eight learning stations with laptops and a SMART Board from which the instructor can conduct the course. A SMART Board is an interactive whiteboard on which a lesson is digitally projected. The teacher can manipulate images with a digital stylus.
No Sharpies here.
The back half has multiple welding stations where students can get hands-on experience.
It's all very modern, high-tech and flashy -- exactly the thing that could spark interest in someone who might not otherwise consider a career in welding.
Recruitment tool
The mobile workshop will do more than attract attention to the college's welding and fabrication program; it will serve as a recruitment tool for an industry in dire need of younger talent.
According to the American Welding Society, the average welder is approaching 60, and few are in line to replace him.
'Education got away from steering people towards these technical jobs," Amaral said.
So the college is literally steering these jobs students. A one-ton truck is pulling the trailer to schools up and down the South Coast.
It also will be a gee-whiz attraction at the county fair as well as a rolling-down-the-highway head turner.
Sating the trailer's huge demand for energy is its own diesel powered generator, making it operable anywhere it parks.
Employee training
It was designed with input from three of the South Coast's heavy industry heavyweights: Coos Bay cargo handlers Sause Bros., Reedsport's American Bridge, and vessel outfitter Freeman Marine in Gold Beach. The college is making the mobile lab available to businesses who want to train employees.
'We can take this to them on their schedule so they don't lose productivity sending their employees elsewhere," Amaral said.
'We've got a number of employees that would like to learn how to weld or refresh their skills," said Doug Aberlein, training manager for Sause Bros., 'and the simulator looks like the ideal process to do that."
Filling the gaps
Like others in the fabrication business, Freeman Marine has concerns about an under-educated workforce.
Bo Shindler, general manager, tells of a time when he hired a recent high school graduate.
'The first time he was asked to use a tape measure, he didn't know what the marks meant," Shindler said. 'The message is ... these kids are coming out of high school and they can't read a tape measure."
'That's what this training lab is about. Let's fill in the gaps."