Sault College introducing new robotics program: training will develop local expertise in robotics programming and troubleshooting.

• Author: Kelly, Lindsay
• Position: Design-Build

A sophisticated robotics lab at Sault College is providing training for students and meeting the needs of industry through applied research applications.

Construction on the Sault Ste. Marie facility began in 2014 with $150,000 in funding from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and proceeded in stages as funding became available, said John Coccimiglio, manager of applied research and innovation at Sault College.

After the lab was initially established, the college quickly realized its limitations: its industrial robot could be tied up for an applied research project for months at a time, leaving it unavailable for the training or postsecondary program.

Then in 2015 more funding --$450,000 from FedNor and $310,275 from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp.--helped push the lab to its next stage: the purchase of six industrial robots and related software.

It allowed the lab to offer all three services simultaneously.

"We can teach process automation, we can do applied research projects for industry, and we can also do training for industry," Coccimiglio said. "So if a company needs training for their employees, we can come up with custom training programs."

This September, the school will launch a new, two-semester graduate certificate program in robotics that will enhance the skills of students who already have a degree or diploma in a related program.

Coccimiglio said the new program will be ideal for people like mechanical technicians, electrical technologists, mechanical engineers, or others who might have some work experience with robotics but no formal training, or those for whom robotics wasn't an option when they went through their original training.

Adding a robotics endorsement to their resumes will make those employees that much more employable, he added.

"Robotics is one of these technologies that's disrupted, and we're going to see in the next five years it's really going to take off," he said. "If you're going to get involved in manufacturing, then having a process automation background with a robotics endorsement would be a very powerful skill set for the future."

The school undertook its first applied research project in May 2016 with Pollard Banknote Ltd., a Sault-headquartered company that supplies lottery scratch tickets to customers around the globe.

Sault College helped Pollard to automate the process of packaging their tickets for distribution, with the goal of reducing their...