On March 4th our EGR150 class took a trip to the
RATTS Lab in Currituck. Until that day, I had no idea what this place was all
about. I’ve never really been interested in airplanes or any type of machinery,
but after the trip I was definitely amused! There are a few pictures below so
you can get a feel as to how our trip was!
The first picture I took was in the first room we toured. This
room stores about 3-4 airplanes that need any mechanical work done to them. I
took a picture of this specific plane because of the COA emblem on the tail,
and of course our school colors!
The second picture I have is of a room filled with manually
operated machines. Here, students learn how to manually operate these machines
before graduating to the computer-operated machines.
In the same room their oldest machine is held, a lathe. A lathe
is a machine shapes parts of a material. Usually metal.
Next we saw the Maxiem Waterjet machine. This was very
interesting to me because I never knew you could cut metals with water! This machine
uses a grainy, sand-like substance and mixes it with water to cut through a
variety of materials.
Finally we got to see a 3D printer in action! This was my
favorite part of the whole tour. After all the buzz about these printers, I finally
got to see one do it’s job. The first picture is the software you download to
your computer. With this software you can design and customize your product. Although
the video is a bit short, you can see the printer shaping the plastic into the
design on the computer screen!
I thoroughly enjoyed our trip! I had so much fun and I learned
a lot of cool new things! Plus, the bathrooms were awesome. ;)
*****
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