Brown at Ellison Technologies Automation

Friday Aug 6, 2010

2010-08-06T09:30:00.002-05:00

This is my 30th and final blog. My experience was pretty clear in our end of year conference meeting yesterday in Des Moines. I have had an experience of a life time working in a very professional business. My students in Missouri Valley will benefit greatly from my experience(as long as they do not get tired of hearing about the robots.) After even 20 years of teaching, I feel like I truly have a better grasp on helping them get ready for another level in their lives. As we spoke in our meeting, the employability and other 21st century skills are very important and very much alive in the working world. I look forward to sharing this with my students. Every teacher needs to so an externship of some kind.

I would like to thank everybody at IMSEP for their organization of this program. I also want to thank all the great people at Ellison Technologies Automation for making my externship everything it could be and for taking the time out of their schedules for all my questions and inquiry, not just on my project, but for my own curiosity as well. I will miss being there and look forward to bringing my students in the near future.

Wednesday Aug 4, 2010

2010-08-04T09:47:00.005-05:00

This is my second to last day. I look forward to getting back to teaching, but I am also going to miss the people I have met and worked with here at Ellison. They have taught me so much about the working world outside of the school building. I do not like to keep using the words 'real world,' because what we as teachers do is the real world, but it is different. Teachers are their own breed. I don't know how many people have mentioned they don't know how I could be around 150 young kids everyday - day after day. As I reflect on those comments, that is exactly why I do it, because I am around 150 young kids everyday. I don't know how many times I have mentioned I would rather be teaching than attending staff development - although very important - or other days away from kids. After this experience, I still feel this way, but feel like I can get them better ready for the 'real world,' even if that real world turns a couple of them into teachers themselves.

Tuesday Aug 3, 2010

2010-08-04T09:38:00.002-05:00

I presented my Burden Absorption tool today and we believe we have a workable tool for the future. Now what I am going to do is make it user friendly for Ellison and print out some instructions. I want to reflect a little on this because it makes be think again about students using labels in their work and using more than just two or three words or expressions to explain a solution. I don't have to mention here why this is important, but to reflect on it in another light. When I created a spreadsheet that I was using, it was very easy for me to use and understand. But creating a spreadsheet for somebody else to use is a different ball game. This is very relative to students work and how they need to think about that when they are writing papers and responses to math problems like their PBIT's(Problem Based Instructional Tasks.) We as teachers need to instruct students to keep this in mind because it will definitely be apart of their work in the future as a professional. I know we as teachers do it ourselves everyday, but do we think to press this upon our students. I know I will after doing this externship.

Monday August 2, 2010

2010-08-02T15:08:00.003-05:00

Today I arrived back at work after taking a week off for a family vacation. It was different from what I am used to because, as teachers, we all take off at the same time right along with the kids. So when we come back, say from Christmas vacation, we have all been gone and the education process has stopped. Last week when I was gone, the rest of the company kept moving ahead as normal, so when I got back, there was a week's worth of progress in the plant. This was strange, yet really cool. Students don't have to experience a week's worth of school work build up, unless they take a vacation while school is still going on and they actually miss classes. I didn't have anything else to blog about, so this is it.

Thursday July 22, 2010

2010-07-22T11:07:00.001-05:00

I spent some time in the plant today visiting with some of the engineers and one of the things I noticed is the enthusiasm and pride they have in the automation of these robots and the process by which it happens. It been a treat to see some of these projects take off from there planning stages to becoming an entire automation process over a short amount of time.

I will get some pictures for my poster as well as to show students the angles and parallelograms that are used to control the movement of the arms. When we talk about alternate interior angles, exterior angles, transversals, etc, because of my experience here at Ellison, those conversations will never be the same. I have some real world examples and pictures to use to demonstrate this stuff. They have even told me I can bring my students for a field trip. If the budget allows it, I will be taking them up on that offer!

Wednesday July 21, 2010

2010-07-21T12:38:00.002-05:00

Greg and I spent a little bit of time talking about employability. He hires based on a skill, but employees who know a little more or have a few other skills - like Excel expertise, makes employees even more valuable. I find this interesting as students as the question why do we need to learn this. One of the answers may be, because it might be something you will use someday that makes you a better employee, even if it wasn't a skill you were hired to do. Unfortunately, this small paragraph does not put into words very eloquently the conversation we had, but rereading it someday will make me remember it and how it will affect my teaching of many skills.

Again, I seem to be gaining more things I can take back to my classroom that do not specifically deal with mathematics. Example, I can add IF/THEN statements to my list of BASIC programming commands used in macros.

Tuesday July 20, 2010

2010-07-20T14:52:00.002-05:00

Macros, macros, and more macros. These things are the neatest thing I have seen this summer in the area of software, trust me, nothing beats these robots and the animation Ellison creates for their customers. I have been working through some tutorials about creating macros as I wait for answers to questions from a resource in another state and they are basically all about simplifying uses with Excel. They are so powerful and can do so many things.

Anyway, as I have been going through these lessons, I have found a couple of comparisons and analogies I am going to implement next year. The first is another way to look at variables. Macros, just like any other programming language uses variables. The author of the latest set of lessons I have been going through refers a variable as "something we define to record information and use it later." Even if later means 2 seconds from now, it is still recording the information and using it later, or in the case of mathematics, discovering what that variable is so we can use it now.

The other example they gave is comparing a variable to a audio tape. If something is recorded on an audio tape, and the tape is put away for five years, it will still have the same thing on it. For the variable to change, we have to change it. I don't know if this will help some students, but an audio tape is very visible and may be a good way to look at. Now, some students may not know what an audio tape is, but could definitely substitute a CD in it's place.

I also think I am going to incorporate writing some macros in a spreadsheet with my programming students next year. It will give them another use of these programming commands I talked about yesterday, while adding Do/While Loops and Variables to the mix.

Monday July 19, 2010

2010-07-19T08:19:00.002-05:00

I learned about Macros and there connection to programming today in the short amount of time I have been researching. I teach a simple programming class during the year called QBASIC. It is very out dated and useless in the real world - at least that's what I thought. Macros are small little programs written within a Microsoft product to carry out a set of instructions every time the Macro is executed. I am very surprised at the amount of similarities between BASIC commands and the commands of a macro. Macros use dimensions, labels, For/Next statements and of course, variables just to name a few. Always good to find more real world uses for variables.

I am absolutely pumped to find another use for BASIC programming as an entry level programming course. I would have never guessed doing an externship in mathematics, would benefit my programming class. I certainly understand the mathematics in programming, but to be able to find some programming in macros - awesome. Another 21st Century Skill at your service!

Friday July 16. 2010

2010-07-19T08:05:00.002-05:00

Greg and I met today and the progress on this model is definitely headed in the right direction. During our meeting we spent some time talking about their uses of Microsoft Excel here at Ellison. They use Excel for time management, accounting, labor, projects, bidding and several other things. Their use also goes past the the everyday functions of adding columns, changing colors of cell backgrounds and centering text. Their use goes deep into capabilities I didn't know existed. Several of the applications combine macros using Visual Basic and combined sheets to create highly sophisticated heavily formulated quote sheets.

Changing the subject, I sheepishly asked about employees knowledge of these skills and of course, many of them are learned on site by the employee. I think a lot of this is these programs are growing in their capabilities as fast as we can teach it. And many aspects of a program like Excel were not efficient or even existed until most of these employees were already on the job. I don't know what depth of word processing and spreadsheets are taught at the secondary level or the post secondary level, but these skills are important and would make a person very employable. I wish I had these skills, but I am very excited to have this opportunity and time to learn them.

Thursday July 15, 2010

2010-07-15T13:34:00.002-05:00

I am real close on getting as good a handle on burden absorption as I think is humanly possible. I am going to go back another year to get a little more data and then I should be ready for final analysis. I meet with Greg tomorrow to look at final project.

In the mean time, I met with the plant manager, Blake today to start looking at my next project. Blake is very knowledgeable in excel, using macros and Visual Basic. I have a lot to learn, but look forward to it.

This project is to develop a proposal document generated from data in a spread sheet that can be handed to a client. Currently, the sales staff enter data into a spread sheet and a word document separately. What they are looking to have is a word document which generates itself from the spread sheet. This will obviously save time and money for consumer. I will hopefully get started on this project tomorrow or Monday.

Wednesday July 14, 2010

2010-07-15T13:28:00.002-05:00

Today was another day of doing the same work toward Burden Absorption, so to get a couple breaks here and there, I spent some time in the plant today drooling on the robots - not really, could cause a shock. But it continues to amaze me the technology and math behind making one of these robots do heavy and burdensome work saving homebody's back somewhere.

These robots can literally be programmed to do about anything conceivable given the space and allowances for the necessary mechanics. There is so much math behind the scenes of how fast the robot should move, what kind of gripper technology the robots needs and how much or how many can the gripper handle at one time.

This will be so fun to talk about with my students and share with them this exciting industry.

Tuesday July 13, 2010

2010-07-14T14:53:00.002-05:00

I am getting very close to a workable model. It probably won't be perfect, but it should give management something to work with. Looking forward to changing gears on a new project. I will be meeting with the project management to get more details.

As far as an update on ICC relationships, there have not been any new skills hit upon, just continuing to be amazed at the importance of the 21st century skills involving employability and technology. I see a lot of phone conferences and small meetings between employees and potential clients all the time. Employees here at Ellison are all very well dressed, professional in their mannerisms and great people skills. I am sure this has a lot to do with the success of the business.

Monday July 12, 2010

2010-07-12T14:32:00.003-05:00

I started itemizing plant burden today and even though I have been working with these programs several weeks now, it hit me how many places I am seeing negative numbers. But instead of putting a negative sign (-) in front of the numbers, all the programs put the negative number in parenthesis. This is interesting and I wonder if this would be important to talk about with students? I think it would be difficult to use parenthesis in class when solving or computing with negative numbers because parenthesis take on a different meaning in the way a problem is solved - order of operations. But this common real world application could be a great discussion piece in a math class. It falls along the same lines as how many different ways can you represent multiplication or division.

Friday July 9, 2010

2010-07-09T11:04:00.003-05:00

Fridays are pretty quiet here so I use them to get caught up on the requirements for the grad class. I am not surprised how much math I am finding here in this type of a manufacturing company, but what does surprise me - pleasantly - is how right on the 21st Century Skills portion of the Iowa Core Curriculum are in this type of company. These skills are necessary for employment opportunities within this business. Therefor, these skills are very important for students to master and I think they can be approached and taught at all curriculum levels, not just in the business classes. Some may be better taught in these classes, but many can be infused into all classes.

Thursday July 8, 2010

2010-07-08T14:36:00.002-05:00

Biggest day yet of crunching numbers. However, I did get a good chuckle as I looked out my cubical to the outside world and saw the sprinkler system was on and one of the sprinkler heads was watering the parking lot. It made me think that even with inanimate objects, sometimes it just doesn't work the way you want it to work. I know this is by no means a piece of phylosophy new to anybody, but I thought I had this spreadsheet all figured out, to realize, I am still missing some piece of information I cannot seem to get my hand on. I guess it is time to bug Greg. I think knowing your sources of information for learning has to be taught to our school kids and the fact solutions to problems may not always come from a book, piece of software, a newspaper or the Internet. Sometimes you have to use another human being. I suppose most of the time that human being is a teacher, but in some situations, students need to feel comfortable verturing out past the school classroom. Because everybody can be a teacher to somebody.

Greg is that resource for me!

Wednesday July 7, 2010

2010-07-08T14:33:00.002-05:00

Today I met with the GM again and made some descent progress on forcasting burden absorption. I didn't have any math or 21st centurey skill revelations different from those already mentioned so I do not have alot to blog about.

Tuesday July 6, 2010

2010-07-07T13:38:00.002-05:00

I was reflecting yesterday how this is the first 4th of July weekend that actually felt like a holiday, because I had a 'day off.' Since this is my first '9-5' job in the summer, having a day off takes on the same meaning as Thanksgiving or Christmas.

More of the same today, crunching numbers, applying formulas and working the cells of a spreadsheet. Thank goodness I like math!

Friday July 2, 2010

2010-07-06T08:38:00.002-05:00

This was a very quiet day, only 4 or 5 employees in the building. The manufacturing plant was not running. It reminded me of the old days when we used to get work days in our rooms. Classrooms are also very quiet when there are not any students in them. I did get a lot of work done, but do prefer a little commotion!

Thursday July 1, 2010

2010-07-06T08:20:00.002-05:00

I did a conference call with an employee at the Seattle, Washington location. The meeting was with the GM of this location, the accounting software guru from Seattle and myself. The meeting occurred in the late afternoon because of scheduling around time zones and other meetings. This was a unique situation for me because I had never been part of a conference call. The benefits of this are obvious, bringing together a group of people without the expense of traveling. The occurrence of conference calls can happen more often, if even for a short amount of time. However, it does offer some other issues. I found it very hard to hear and understand the speaker of the phone and the employee from Seattle had a hard time understanding us as well. Several times we had to pick up the hand set of the phone and talk directly into it for her to understand.

Applications to this involve time zones for scheduling and leaning to communicate over a speaker phone. These are skills needing be be taught and practiced in the classroom. Time zones are very important and probably could be taught in a Geography Class or Middle School Math Classroom. Some very easy scenarios could be set up to check for understanding. I also feel it is important for our business classes to be doing some mock conference calls, if even between to separate locations in the same building. This would help students feel more confident in the workplace.

Wednesday June 30, 2010

2010-07-06T08:00:00.002-05:00

I have emphasised in an earlier post the importance of continuing to work on a solution or task when the answer does not seem readily available. The task of burden absorption is very complex and requires a great deal of information and understanding. In this post, I want to concentrate on how I am gaining this information to continually work on this task. I have met and worked with many different employees here at Ellison to get an understanding of the numbers and where they come from. Looking at the Employability concept of the ICC 21st Century Skills Inventory, the first skill is applied on a daily basis. Communicating and working productively with others to increase innovation and the quality of work is absolutely very important. If I could not work with my colleagues professionally, nothing would get done. Having students work together in small groups has taken on a new meaning for me. In my class, it is going to be about more than just getting the correct answer, its going to be the process of working in a group to get there. In the future, getting the right answer is going to be far less important for my students than it has been. In school, they need to learn to work together toward a common goal. If that goal is achieved and they get the right answer, great, but if they worked together productively, even better.

Tuesday June 29, 2010

2010-06-29T15:06:00.002-05:00

Today was a break through day. I learned how to create string and string variable in a spreadsheet. In other works, how to add columns and rows with letters instead of numbers and then relate them to numbers within a formula. For example, count the number of 'V's in a certain month and multiply that number by 10 and then a hourly rate. I also learned how to keep a cell static so when a formula is copied, it remains the same. These are both very useful spreadsheet techniques in manufacturing accounting.

Monday June 28, 2010

2010-06-28T15:17:00.003-05:00

I feel like I am one piece of a puzzle away from being able to start building a forcasting tool. I don't have a lot to say today except that spreadsheets are a very valuable 21st Century skill all students entering the work force should be comfortable using.

Friday June 25, 2010

2010-06-28T09:50:00.002-05:00

Today, it hit me. A real world experience different from teaching, I do not have any papers or tests to grade. I don't have any lesson plans to write this weekend. I do not have any tests to write or amend.

In the short amount of time here, I have gained a vast amount of mathematical material and loads of 21st centurt skills to share with students to validate their learning, but I have also realized how many hours I put in as a teacher past the 40 hour work week with out the benefit of overtime. However, the advantage of spending the day with many students who do want to learn and rely on a teacher for their future is priceless. I am anxious to share my knowlegde of these skills in the real world with my students and having the confidence of this contiuned experience to back it up. I continue to appreciate the opportunity to work within a company like Ellison Technologies Automation.

Thursday June 24, 2010

2010-06-24T15:05:00.002-05:00

I had the same type of day today as yesterday. I am continuing to look for correlations so we can do some forecasting. Real world accounting in a manufacturing company is incredibly complex. There is a lot to keep organized. The use of spreadsheets and computer software are two very big 21st Century Skills used to help with this management. It is a given these skills need to be mastered before a person steps into this environment.

Wednesday June 23, 2010

2010-06-23T14:32:00.002-05:00

I spent today crunching numbers and trying to come up with some correlations between several different variables. I think I am on the right track, but not there yet.

Working on a problem like this is a good example of an open ended problem without any one method of obtaining a solution or I am not even sure if there is a right answer. Time will tell. I can understand why some students want to give up after several unsuccessful attempts. Now the challenge is finding a way to motivate students to keep trying other than just giving them a grade on the assignment. To bad we couldn't pay them for their solutions, since that is how it truly works in the real world!

Ellison is working on a big animated robotic solution for a local company and it was cool to see the progress from last week to today.

Friday June 18, 2010

2010-06-18T11:17:00.002-05:00

I continued to work on Burden Absorption today. The plant is closed on Fridays except for any jobs being wrapped up and shipped out, so I spend the day on my computer crunching numbers and bugging upper management with questions. I am learning quite a bit about manufacturing finance and how it relates to profit. The math is pretty simple, but the cognitive appoach is very complicating. This is nothing like balancing a checkbook or calculating quarter grades. Thank goodness for excel and computer finance programs. The 21st Century Skill of Technology Literacy and the financial application of ETA definitely apply digital tools to gather, evaluate and use information.

Thursday June 17, 2010

2010-06-18T08:34:00.004-05:00

Today was the second day of the Celebrate Manufacturing. I learned a little bit about the visual aspect of robotics. One of the underlying principals under the essential concepts/skills of Geometry and Measurement in the Iowa Core Curriculum is Vertex-edge Graphs. I think in the visual recognition aspect of robotics, a certain aspect of this may have a few implications in Vertex-edge Graphs. I am going to spend a little time researching this over the next couple of weeks.

Wednesday June 16, 2010

2010-06-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

Robotics use an incredible amount of math and mathematical understanding. Here is how I know. ETA is having a Celebrate Manufacturing event through Thursday and I have had the pleasure of sitting in on some tremendous seminars. Learning the benefits of using FANUC Robotics to pallatize, pack and pick, mathematics has a huge part of the programming and understanding and location of these Robotics. Area, volume, speed, proportions, distances, intersections, and line of best fit just to name a few. The other use is the understanding of labels. The industry uses label such as bpm, cpm and mm/sec just to name a few. These represent items like bags, cups, boxes, cases or cartons and they are labeled per minute or per second. Students do not always see the importance of labels, but in robotics, they are crucial and help to design and sell robotics based on their capabilities or capacities. I look forward to learning more on Thursday.

Tuesday June 15, 2010

2010-06-15T15:07:00.001-05:00

I spend some time today watching robotics in action. Happen to noticed the use of three dimensional mathematics in some of the programming. I am anxious to be able to share with my students the necessity of the three dimensions x, y and z with my students as the robotic arms are programmed in three dimensions for obvious reasons.

Today I also met with the General Manager to go over the project management software they use to keep track of the hours and material costs. This will be the first step in helping to forecast burden costs.

Monday June 14, 2010

2010-06-14T14:19:00.000-05:00

Today was my first day on the job at Ellison Technologies Automation. I have my own cubical with a phone, computer and lots of room. I have been set up with an email account and access to files I will need to do my job. I have spent most of the day analyzing a spreadsheet to learn how the numbers are crunched. Today I have already seen the differences between being a teacher and working in the corporate world. It's quieter and its hard to get used to having more that 5 minutes to get something accomplished. I am so used to trying to get everything done during a 3 minutes passing period, this is really relaxing and enjoyable to be able to work on one task, not planning and working on 6 different things. Ellison Technologies Automation is a very professional and friendly environment.