Wednesday 16 April 2014

Picutres from SKF Technical School

Hi,

The name's Joakim Taxén and I work as a teacher in several knowledge areas at the SKF Technical school in Gothenburg, Sweden. The school is owned by the company AB SKF Group, probably most associated with roller- and ball bearing units, even though that's only 20% of the product & service range... Anyways, the Gothenburg plant is where the company was founded in 1907 (the school was actually founded in 1937) and the production is today heavy industrial large bearing units in the range 100-3000 mm in diameter. The school educates our students in mechanical machinery, CNC-machining, electrical wiring and electronics, maintenance, linear power equipment (pneumatics & hydraulics) and also prepare them for university studies. Quite a tight schedule and a lot to deal with during three years, but it works good, according to the students themselves. I've been in my current role since 2011 and enjoy working here.

This is the entrance to the Kristinedals fitness center (also owned by SKF, providing free of charge exercise abilities for employees and students at our school). The school is located at the top floor, with the workshop in another building, seen in the background to the far right.

This is the entrance to the workshop, the long hallway is about 70m long. Plastic plants by the way.

Milling machines to the left
Turning machines to the right
At the right side of the hallway is the lathe machines, Storebro GK195 (typical training machinery), We've got seven of them. At the opposite side are seven milling machines placed

Here is a student turning what lookes like a cone or nozzle of some sorts. It's for one of the third year student projects before graduation, in which they are working on real projects to assist the company production with new improvements.



At this station, students are practicing different techniques in mounting skills. The picture shows the most common way, the hydraulic pressure method. I've included a diagram to the right of how it works.

Here are some students disassembling a lathe chuck for inspection and reconditioning. The large (35,0") floppy disc in the right corner was part of a student performance during a project called "The Opera". (And yes, it was hilarious) Never mind that. =)



To the left is a electrical wiring station where students connect equipment and practice troubleshooting (trouble intentionally caused by the teacher, not accidentially by students themselves of course).
To the right is the hydraulic equipment station where we learn them the basics of a hydraulic powered system. In the background is our CNC-lathe.

Fine mechanical section of the workshop in our school
Fine mechanical section in SKF GmbH School Schweinfurt 
As a small bonus picture, I've attached a workshop image from our last visit to the SKF School i Schewinfurt in February this year, when our third year students went on their vocational training for nine weeks. They left Gothenburg in early february to SKF Factories all over the world, and are back home again this week. Very interesting experience and good for their CV's when applying for a job in the future.

Monday 7 April 2014

Tommy, Vehicle and Transport Programme, Lorries and mobile machinery.

Hello! My name is Tommy Segersteen and I am a teacher at the Vehicle and transport program with orientation Lorries and mobile machinery in Borås, the school name is Viskastrand High School. 
It's my second year as a teacher and worked as a mechanic at substantially heavier vehicles before that. This photo is the front of my workplace.

This is the entrance to the workshop. The workshop is about 3 km from the main school.

 This is the workshop!
 To the left is an old Volvo FH12a that the students do some exercises on, the red car with rotating beacons are our service car and with that the students go out and do field work on the other educational programs vehicle, the white is the main transport vehicle that the students go and get parts to vehicles that we repair. The blue truck cab belonging to a crashed FH12a that we got from Volvo, the plan is to repair and used for educational purposes.

 This is a student who will take apart an AC compressor and see what it looks like inside and then answer some questions.

Here have a student removed a transmission on a truck and removed the bell housing to check why it sounds bad on the reverse. The truck gearbox sits on a Volvo FM7-owned transport orientation that students have repaired and serviced.

 Here is a student who welds an excavator bucket. The entire left side was replaced in the bucket. When we got the bucket it was very cracked.


Hi
This first photo is "my" local for education


This photo is the main entrance to the school. The schoolyard


In this station we do some practice work with fluids. Measuring presure, over different valvs and pipes.


This is an heatexchanger where the main thing is to
 understand how all valvs should be for different ways depending of wich exchanger 
that should be running


In this equipment we investigate different types of filter and how they
must be controlled by, fore example, pressure


We also investigate different types of valves


Sorry! This photois not standing. But here we practice destilation


Here is ouer steem generator. Almost all industries have som kind of 
needs for generating heat. Thats why we also is learning of this equipment and 
also how to generate pure water, wich is needed for the equipment.



We also have an extruder. That type that one need when making 
plasitc products








We also do some studying!!! This is the class room, next to the equipment


The steem generator again but you also see the glass equipment to the left. 
There we can do some chemical reactions


Also in thise glass equipment we do some chemical experiment. mainly extractions


And off cuorse som studies



Sunday 6 April 2014

Hello there!

My name is Henric Wendt and I work as a secondary teacher at the Vehicle and Transport education in a small town named Laholm. This is my school with the name Osbecksgymnasiet, where I work and practise. The school is such a small school with less than 1000 students.

The picture shows the head building entry and the schoolyard. The white building is for the practical education programs. My school educate in three vocational subjects: vehicle and transport, industrial and electrical engineering.




Here you can see the training local. When you enter the local it’s just like an ordinary garage with cars, car lifts, tools, diagnostic instruments and other things that you can find in a garage. 



Here is a learning situation where one of my students make a service on a Volvo. I try to use real situations as long as I can just to get the students to understand how it works in reality. 



My teacher colleague shows the students a Land Rover and teach them where the vehicle is built and in which situations you can use that kind of car. We are in this time teaching about 4 wheel drive so Land Rover is a perfect choice.



As you can see we have got a good cooperation with Volvo. This car was donated by Volvo for educational purposes, which we are very grateful for. 



In first grade the students learn how to shift tires and how to balance them. In this picture two of my students are practicing that operation.

Vanja, ITP at Tingsholm

Hi! My name is Vanja, and I'm a teacher in welding, cutting and joining methods in Sweden. Welding has been my profession for the past 20 years, and I have been teaching for 12 years. The pictures I'm going to show you are from Tingsholmsgymnasiet in Ulricehamn, Sweden. I don't work there at the moment, but I made a few practice weeks there, and enjoyed it a whole lot! The industrial technology programme is just one of many programmes at Tingsholm. The students learn about different techniques, and milling and welding is just two of them.

Milling and turning machines in the main workshop at Tingsholm,
early in the morning before the students arrive...
The school puts a lot of effort into introducing the students into new technology. I know it doesnt look like that on the pictures, but that's the truth. The students gets to learn a lot about robotics, CNC, CAD and CAD/CAM, and in my opinion quite little about the actual craftmanship behind the technology, but hey, I'm probably just old fashioned! ;)

CNC milling and turning machines.


The welding methods that are taught are mig/mag, tig, mma and oxyacetylenewelding. This part of the programme is merely "just for trying", so that the students gets an idea of what it's all about.

Just a glimpse of the welding workshop. Neat, isn't it?

There are aproximately 19000 welders in Sweden and there are room for more. The need for educated welders are huge. 

A student tries spray arc welding with metal core wire.

Many of the students gets employed after graduation, and some of them gets extra job at summer holidays and weekends even before that. I noticed, during my practice weeks, that the students really seemed to enjoy their education. Most of them were in good mood most of the time, paid attention to their teachers, and performed really well during their lessons. As I have been teaching for a few years now, I've seen both ups and downs, and kids who don't enjoy school much at all. That was not the case at this programme though, and I'm happy for that.
Nice try! Spray arc welding with metal core wire is a sight for sore eyes.