The grand opening of the lab at DCC’s Center of Excellence for Industry & Innovation was in the national spotlight October 6 when First Lady Jill Biden stopped by on a tour of the Hudson Valley to tout her husband’s agenda. The $3 million facility was largely funded by grants from SUNY, Empire State Development, Dutchess County, and the American Rescue Plan Act. The purpose of the lab is to prepare students for jobs in manufacturing — but what exactly does that entail?
Freddy Santiago, coordinator of mechatronics programming for DCC, says the manufacturing jobs of the future are multi-dimensional, requiring a fundamental understanding of multiple types of machinery.
"What this is really incorporating is all the different technologies that fall under the industry for technology framework," he explains. "So 3D-printing, also known as additive manufacturing; AI technology; nanoscale technology or automation; [and] robotic manipulation, where they're self-gearing, self-steering, and they operate as one single entity."
To that end, Santiago says the mechatronics lab is divided into three main modules: the electronic/automation lab; a mechanical lab; and a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning lab.
Students in the HVAC lab are taught all about refrigeration and heat pump systems with hands-on stations that mimic both manufacturing applications and HVAC units you find in your own home. By sizing residential HVAC units, for example, Santiago says students get in the habit of thinking like engineers and considering things like the volume of the room, the insulation of different materials, people load, and more.
“It offers them the opportunity to understand how the physics actually becomes the practice," he smiles.
Santiago says students can receive their EPA Section 608 certification, a federal requirement for those working with air conditioners and refrigerants, after earning about 30 credits.
Next door, the mechanical lab allows students to study what Santiago calls “fluid power,” including hydraulics, pneumatics, gears, and belt drives. The sprawling electronic/automation lab, meanwhile, contains 35 credits of stations meant to help students understand everything from basic circuit theory to advanced electrical processes. Santiago says this is where students can learn how to measure voltage, filter signals, and size transformers.
“What this is really doing, is giving them an introduction to what, eventually, they’ll start to see in the other equipment," says Santiago. "That translates into the manufacturing industry.”
It all comes together in a large, automated assembly line at the front of the lab. It looks like the ultimate Rube Goldberg machine — and the premise is, roughly, the same. Santiago says each station has its own parts that need to be assembled and connected to complete a task, but they can also be programmed to work together as one, and the stations can be rearranged and reprogrammed as needed to make whatever students are looking for.
After hopping on the computer to boot everything up, Santiago gives the assembly line a quick run-through. In less than a minute, the string of motors, conveyor belts and robotic arms transforms a small metal cube into what I’d call a doohickey, but what Santiago calls a "directional control valve," used in pneumatics and hydraulic circuitry.
What this all adds up to are high-tech manufacturing jobs — not the kinds of jobs that can be replaced by automation, because, well, the graduates from DCC will be the ones building, programming, and maintaining the robots.
Paloma Krakower, director of workforce education and development at DCC, says the lab was developed with industry partners, like GlobalFoundries and OnSemiconductor, in mind. That way, DCC can serve as a workforce pipeline and, it’s hoped, help students secure quality technician positions, which Krakower says typically start about about $60,000-$70,000 a year. It also helps keep those jobs and talent in New York.
Krakower says she especially wants to help make the industry more accessible.
"We are looking to to recruit neurodiverse students, who could be excellent candidates for this type of industry," she adds. "There are paths for people who are brand new, and paths for people who are already in industry, and I think that it's going to be an awesome continued collaboration, and I'm really excited to see what we can do."
DCC’s Fishkill campus currently offers an Electrical Technology Associates of Applied Science and six different technical training courses with certification through the Smart Automation Certification Alliance and the Manufacturing Skills Standards Council. Santiago says the college is also working on developing an HVAC associate’s program, and it intends to expand its programs for middle, high school, and BOCES students.
