Department of Polytechnic Studies receives new robot arm

The Department of Polytechnic Studies recently received a new robotic arm for students to use in the classroom.

The Universal UR-5 robot was a donation from Toyoda Gosei Missouri.

Toyoda Gosei Missouri, also known as TGMO, is located in Perryville, Missouri, and hires many engineer and technology graduates from Southeast Missouri State University. TGMO and Southeast have been collaborating over the last few years to provide the best learning experience for students as possible to prepare them for a job after graduation. Dr. Brad Deken, chair of the Department of Polytechnic Studies, calls the partnership with TGMO a “tight-knit relationship.”

“I think [TGMO] started seeing a need that they were going to have to hire more engineering-technology students, our graduates, to keep pace with their field,” Deken said. “[TGMO] kind of upped the game by actually providing the equipment so that [the students] can implement it in their facility.”

With the robotic arm, the students can simulate an operation that occurs at the TGMO facility, giving them real-life experience in their field.

The robotic arm that was added to the Department of Polytechnic studies.Photo by Tanner Ward

“They have one set of equipment and we have another set of equipment,” Deken said. “So whatever we do here [the students] can turn around and make there.”

The operation involves attaching brackets and nuts through a welder. The robot is equipped with a camera, allowing it to see and recognize the parts it needs, then pick up that specific part and drop it into place.

“It’s not remote-controlled,” Deken said. “It is automated, so the robot itself is making decisions. ... It goes from a process where a person is doing this 24 hours a day to a process where somebody is just monitoring what’s going on there.”

The students working with the robot now are learning how to program the arm to recognize the shapes of the parts to select and place them exactly where they need to go. By the end of this semester, the student’s will have the robot fully programmed to operate like it would be at TGMO.

The latest robotic arm joins six others the department already had, but separates itself with its complexity.

“There are different configurations of robots,” Deken said. “Some are more designed for pick and place, which is just grabbing things off a conveyor and loading it into a packaging or something else, whereas the articulated arm, such as the one [TGMO] donated ... have finer control and can do much more complex things.”

The latest robot is also safer for a person to work around than other systems.

“What makes this one different than a lot of our other robots is it’s a collaborative robot,” Deken said. “Which means it’s designed for a human to be working right alongside of it. It has special sensors and other things within its joints that can tell if it hits you, and once it does that it will stop or shut down. … In comparison with our other robot systems, if those were to hit you, they’re moving with such force and with such strength that it’s not going to notice it and just plow right through you.”

Along with the robotic arm, TGMO also donated more than $100,000 to the department.

“They are trying to help us get more equipment in our own department in hopes that it will match up with what [the students] are seeing out there in the industry,” Deken said. “We can leverage some of those funds so that we can make a purchase that we would not normally make. ... Quite frankly, we don’t have enough students in our engineering-technology programs and in our engineering programs on campus, and so part of that money can be used for outreach to try and encourage students to consider [these programs].”

The money donation and the robotic arm is an effort from TGMO and the Department of Polytechnic Studies to help advance education in the classroom and improve the preparation of the students for jobs after graduation.