Four States Regional Technology Conference

   My FSRTC experience started out....a little........confused. I was expecting the "session" that we were supposed to attend, to be a speaker or something of the sort. So I sat in on what I thought was going to be a presentation about graphics, engineering, or plastics technologies. Instead, I sat in on a presentation about Unemployment benefits. Well....I took notes anyway (let's hope I never have to really collect on these benefits). If anyone wants some notes on unemployment I have them, but for now I'll just stick to the rest of my experience with the session.
   After I was thoroughly schooled on unemployment, I went out to look at all the booths set up for presentation. First I stopped at the Industrial Technical Services Incorporated booth. My dad, an electrician, and a home improvement junkie, loved the info on this equipment. Larry Bowden briefly explained their Speed Sander, which is a huge sanding machine that can do entire sheets of plywood in a snap. He more thoroughly went over the Saw Stop product and showed me a video about it as well.
     The Saw Stop is a safety mechanism for saws that operates off of electrical principal. The blade on a Saw Stop carries a small electrical signal, when skin contacts the blade, the signal changes because the human body is conductive. This triggers the safety system. "An aluminum brake springs into the spinning blade, stopping it. The blade's angular momentum drives it beneath the table, removing the risk of subsequent contact. Power to the motor is shut off." So as boring as that may be for some of you, its a very useful safety tool. There is one table saw injury every 9 minutes, and 10 table saw amputations every day. Instead of a missing finger, you come out of the ordeal with no more than a papercut!
    I moved on to the Dimensional Innovations booth where I found som interesting concepts and also some very well done print pieces. I am going to try and emulate their printed pieces format for portfolio projects. I could explain how awesome this company looks but you would be best served to check out their website for visuals. http://www.dimin.com/
    I stopped at the Lego Education booth to talk to Bill Gill about the "toys" he had on the table. I didn't realize that Lego had such advanced robotics as they do. They have projects up through the college level for aiding teaching. Mostly we talked about how the education is implemented around the state of Kansas, and I found out I was one of the first guinea pigs of the project when I was in middle school in Hutchinson, KS. We got off topic and talked about people we mutually know, football, but the bottom line, really nice guy. Now I'm getting off topic as well.
  To conclude, what started out as a confused experience turned out to be an interesting, educational one. You never really know what's out there until you go see these things, talk to these people and experience it for yourself. The opportunities in our industry are more vast than I think I will ever fully know.