Sole Education Week 4: Trends of the Trade

Innovation and growth are two things that drive most industries. Without these two driving forces, a company will find itself slowly fading into obscurity.This week, we asked Mikayla to give us the lowdown on the latest and greatest technology in the Mechanical Engineering field - check out what she had to share:

Trends of the Trade:

A trending topic in my trade right now is the use of new technology such as Augmented and Virtual Reality. Especially in manufacturing, prototyping, a product can be costly and time-consuming.Throughout the 00's technology revolution, we have seen the original desktop computer, the laptop mobile computer, then the mobile phone with the same functions as a computer. This has technological investors asking, what's next?Augmented and virtual reality will be able to impact the engineering industry in ways we didn't think possible.There is a difference between augmented and virtual reality: virtual reality is when you are placed into the virtual space, whereas augmented reality is when virtual objects are placed into your own space.Many automotive manufacturers like Volvo Trucks have already invested in virtual and augmented reality to visualize full-scale truck models in 3D CAD software.With this technology, Volvo trucks can examine designs up close without spending the money to prototype them. Volvo Trucks also utilizes virtual reality for truck driving simulations, to find ways to make the driver more comfortable, as well as test the drivability of a truck before it is manufactured.With augmented reality, engineers can see the part in front of them in their own space. In manufacturing, a technician could use augmented reality to visualize the assembly and disassembly instructions for a piece of equipment, to perform maintenance, just by scanning a simple bar code.Follow along with our students progress here.Learn more about the Generation T movement here.

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