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One of the characteristic features of the next-generation of Industry 4.0 is human-centricity, which in turn includes two technological advancements: Artificial Intelligence and the Industrial Metaverse. In this work, we assess the impact that AI played on the advancement of three technologies that emerged to be cornerstones in the fourth generation of industry: intelligent industrial robotics, unmanned aerial vehicles, and additive manufacturing. Despite the significant improvement that AI and the industrial metaverse can offer, the incorporation of many AI-enabled and Metaverse-based technologies remains under the expectations. Safety continues to be a strong factor that limits the expansion of intelligent industrial robotics and drones, whilst Cybersecurity is effectively a major limiting factor for the advance of the industrial metaverse and the integration of blockchains. However, most research works agree that the lack of the skilled workforce will no-arguably be the decisive factor that limits the incorporation of these technologies in industry. Therefore, long-term planning and training programs are needed to counter the upcoming shortage in the skilled workforce.

 

This paper reports on how institutions collaborating on Additive Manufacturing (AM) and Smart Manufacturing (SM) have been able to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic and be able to modify their planned activities in 2020 in an effort to continue delivering quality training and education to educators across the country. The pandemic made it impossible to offer the usual on-ground workshops to STEM educators and industrial practitioners. As a workaround, the project teams offered instructional delivery via Zoom and Microsoft Teams while also providing distance learning tools online. The best practices of the delivery and pros/cons of the operations will be presented with the feedback received from the participants. 

3D Printing (3DP), also known as Additive Manufacturing (AM) is the latest production technology. Its popularity in fabricating functional parts in all fields is growing day by day. The range of 3D printed products is limitless, including glass frames to hearing aids. It is thus important to train educators and students regarding this cutting-edge technology so that they become familiar with the functionality and implementation of it in several courses, laboratories, and projects. This paper reports several novel developments which have been implemented in the past few years, including details of these unique practices and feedback received from the educators and students. 

Rare-earth (RE) materials are currently used to fabricate permanent magnets through various additive manufacturing (AM) methods. Fused filament fabrication (FFF) is one of the most commonly used polymer-based AM methods and has recently been used to produce metal-matrix composites, known as “green parts,” using a metal powder-infused filament. The FFF method has gained much attention in various industries including the automotive, aerospace, and medical fields. Therefore, involving RE in the FFF process using magnetic powder-infused filaments promises to result in the fabrication of low-cost, efficient, and complex magnetic components based on application areas. This module introduces the FFF process and provides a case study for high school and technical college students to gain a fundamental understanding of how magnetic powders are infused and how parts are fabricated using this method. 

This module introduces students to the additive manufacturing (AM) methods used in fabricating magnetic materials. The module briefly introduces magnetic properties, types of magnetic materials, AM technologies used to produce these magnets, and application areas. 

One of the fastest growing fields in the broad field of engineering is Additive Manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D Printing. AM is being used in many fields including, among others, design, STEM, construction, art, and healthcare. Many educational institutions however, do not have the requisite capacity and resources to effectively educate students in this area particularly when it comes to rapid transition from design to small-volume level production. A coalition of several higher education institutions under a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Project has been working towards providing educators with the skills and material resources to effectively teach their students about 3D printing. The ultimate beneficiaries are high school and post-secondary students and include those in vocational fields. Before and during Fall 2019, Train the Trainer Studios (TTS) were conducted to train instructors, drawing participants from many institutions across neighboring states designed to provide hands-on instruction to participants. In addition, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) and webinars have also been made available to all participating instructors and other collaborators to openly share the information being generated through this ATE AM coalition. Evaluation of the TTS revealed many positive results, with the participants sharing many success stories after implementing the learned concepts at their institutions. From the evaluation findings, participants were largely satisfied with the delivery and quality of instruction they received from all the TTS presenters, with almost all of them, in all instances, indicating that the training they received would be useful in their programs. The current paper and proposed presentation will report on the lessons learned through this process, including sharing some of the success stories from the instructors and their students. 

Today, the current trends of manufacturing are towards the adaptation and implementation of smart manufacturing, which is a new initiative to turn the traditional factories into profitable innovation facilities. However, the concept and technologies are still in a state of infancy, since many manufacturers around the world are not fully knowledgeable about the benefits of smart manufacturing compared to their current practices. This article reviews several aspects of smart manufacturing and introduces its advantages in terms of energy-saving and production efficiency. This article also points out that some areas need further research so that smart manufacturing can be shaped better. 

In this project, the following products were produced as a result of this project: Smart Manufacturing training workshops Online Educational modules on Smart Manufacturing Industrial speaker short talks that present the State-of-the-art Industrial Applications Peer-reviewed articles were produced. High school and Middle School visits In the hands-on training, we demonstrated the use of code-programmed drones in technical education and Smart Manufacturing (SM). Unmanned aerial and ground vehicle technologies are increasingly finding applications in industrial settings. Training on SM is achieved by using coded drones, with educational modules and a database of technologies and their applications.