It’s a bit of on-campus cross-pollinization: Edmonds Community College’s Engineering Club is building a machine to help the Beekeeping Club get honey from hives.
Former Engineering Club president Johnathan Mensonides is one of five students working this summer on the honey extractor.
To do so, the students have spent time at Monroe Hall using 3-D printers to build parts for the machine.
With the 3-D printers, Mensonides, 20, of Mukilteo, is able to design the individual pieces on the computer screen and actually create the parts in the lab.
“I think they’re amazing,” Mensonides said of the 3-D printers. “It puts creating things into the students’ hands themselves.”
The 3-D printers are new pieces of equipment the college received as a direct result of the deal the state put together to help convince the Boeing Co. to place the final assembly and wing work of the future 777X jetliner in Everett.
In the agreement, the state pumped $17 million into education and training of future aerospace workers.
The Engineering Technology Department used dollars received this year to purchase seven new 3-D printers, two 3-D scanners, a robotic arm and an injection molder.
The new equipment cost more than $80,000, the lion’s share coming from the Boeing deal, said Jason Sawatzki, lab technician for the department. Other money came from Work Force Development funds.
The college gets money for new equipment every year, but just not this much at once.
“We probably wouldn’t have gotten this windfall in one year,” Sawatzki said.
While the college has had 3-D printers for about 10 years, the new equipment is more modern and more cost effective than the old printers.
“This is really what the revolution is,” Sawatzki said. “Now I don’t have to tell students whether or not they can go print. If they waste a part, chances are the part cost a quarter rather than $50 like it did five years ago.”
And together, the equipment allows the students to create a project and take it from concept to prototype and even produce hundreds of items.
What will those projects be?
“That’s up to our student’s imagination,” Sawatzki said. “I’ve learned not to speculate on what our students come up with.”
In classes this fall, the students can dream up projects that they can talk about during interviews at Boeing, Fluke or other companies that hire Edmonds Community College students.
“That’s what the goal is,” Sawatzki said. “To get these students hired when they get done here.”
For this summer, the new equipment is allowing students to build a machine to extract honey from honeycombs using centrifugal force.
The Beekeeping Club put up the money for the project and the Engineering Club is getting the experience.
And maybe the Engineering Club will get a little honey.
“That depends on how generous they are,” Mensonides said. “But really, this is just a great opportunity for us.”
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