2023 FLATE Manufacturing Student Event Award
Nominate your 2022 event!
Certificates of Completion for PD/CE hours available upon request for attendees.
Mechatronics 101: FREE workshop for
Secondary & Post-Secondary Educators
March 9, 2023 | 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Hillsborough Community College - Tampa
This hands-on workshop will introduce faculty to an entry level Mechatronics course (Concepts of Electronics) taught to high school students at a distance in Nebraska and Minnesota. Attendees will assemble a trainer and perform lab exercises designed for high school students. Participants will take their finished trainer (valued over $300) home and be asked to create a lab with the trainer to share with other workshop attendees. Materials and curriculum will also be made available. 

The workshop is FREE, lunch will be provided, and attendees will take their trainer home to use in their own classrooms. Certificates of Attendance for CE/PD credit provided upon request.
FLATE News
FLATE Launches Dashboard!
ManufacturingMattersFL.org
FLATE is excited to launch our new Manufacturing Matters FL dashboard - a tool to highlight manufacturing education, careers, industry, and their impact on Florida's economy. The dashboard includes data on student enrollment and completion for high schools, technical colleges, and state colleges in programs supporting manufacturers.

The Manufacturing Matters FL dashboard can support local employers, educators, guidance and career counselors, students, current workers, policymakers, and other stakeholders.  It also provides data important for business intelligence and for situational assessment within the three main sections: Education and Skills Demand, Manufacturing Workforce, Industry Growth, and Diversity. The About section has information on use cases for the dashboard. A search feature Under the "Education Snapshot by Institution" section allows the industry to find schools producing the talent they need.

The content on the dashboard was created in collaboration with educators, industry, and workforce organizations. It is still a work in progress, and we will continually update the dashboard as we receive new feature requests. Check out the Manufacturing Matters FL dashboard (http://manufacturingmattersfl.org); let us know if you have questions or comments by emailing us at events@flate.org.
Celebrating Career & Technical Education (CTE) in Florida
On February 1, 2023, Governor Ron DeSantis and Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz, Jr. commemorated February as Career and Technical Education (CTE) Month. CTE Programs in Florida’s High Schools & Colleges are developing a skilled, sustainable manufacturing workforce. In Florida, secondary schools in all 67 school districts, 28 Florida colleges, and 48 technical colleges and centers offer high-quality CTE coursework, certifications, skills-based education, and degrees. Currently, there are 17 career clusters throughout the state. The manufacturing career cluster incorporates six career pathways to include: 1) Production, 2) Manufacturing Production Process Development,3) Maintenance, Installation & Repair, 4) Quality Assurance, 5) Logistics & Inventory Control, and 6) Health, Safety & Environmental Assurance.

FLATE, with the Florida Department of Education and FloridaMakes, continues to support quality CTE programs, providing resources for educators, students, and industry. FLATE's educational resources are intended to increase students’ awareness of and interest in careers in the field of manufacturing, integrating the academic and technical skills required in today’s high-technology manufacturing.
Biomedical Engineering Technology Hands-on Lab Kits
Dr. Brian Bell, Biomedical Engineering Technology Faculty at St. Petersburg College, has created new hands-on labs using electronics kits designed for students to learn how to:
  • Build biomedical devices
  • Test electronic circuits for healthcare environments
  • Learn about the applications of healthcare technology

Using the kits, students assemble ECG readers and are able to analyze their own hearts electrocardiograph. They also create their own ECG simulator to test patient monitors and build on their electrical safety testing knowledge.
St Petersburg College to Launch Biomedical Engineering Technology Academy
A new Collegiate Academy is coming to the St. Pete College Tarpon Springs campus in Fall 2023. At the academy, students can complete an Associate in Science in Biomedical Engineering Technology – completely free – while earning their high school diploma. The A.S. degree trains students to meet the growing need for biomedical equipment repairers, who maintain the sophisticated medical devices that patients’ lives depend on. 

The BMET Academy includes an internship that provides on the job training and the opportunity to earn up to four industry certifications.

North Florida College Helps Develop Manufacturing Career Pipeline through Camps & Lego Competitions
Bill Eustace, Program Instructor for North Florida College’s Certified Production Technology (CPT) Program, hosted the annual North Florida College (NFC) Robotics Camp for middle school students and the NFC Mechatronics Camp for high school students, where groups engage in hands-on learning of robotics and software programming.

On January 23, 2023, young contestants of the Suwannee River Regional Library LEGO Club Extravaganza were in a competition to be the first to build, program, and race LEGO Mindstorms EV3 robots. While fun was a major theme of this event, participants learned elements of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).“Toys like LEGOs can open doors to creative design thought,” said Eustace. “Fun and competitive experiences in subject areas such as STEM are the foundation to engineering and manufacturing.”
Other Upcoming Events
18th Annual Florida Engineering Education Conference
March 3, 2023 - UCF Student Union
K-12 STEM teachers, administrators, practicing engineers and other (informal) educators from across Florida involved in and/or interested in learning more about STEM education are welcome to attend the Florida Engineering Education Conference (FEEC) at the University of Central Florida. Parking, lunch, and conference materials included. Sales end on February 20th.
ATE Office Hours: Hidden Innovation Project
February 28, 2023 - 1PM - 2PM ET
ATE Office Hours provides a venue where those of us in the ATE community can communicate and learn from each other, discover collaborators, and find solutions for the challenges we all face in our project and center work. Each interactive group video conference is limited to 50 ATE grantees. Join Dr. Marilyn Barger at on February 28th to discuss The Hidden Innovation Project. Two web-based tools will be demonstrated that can quickly provide trend data for graduates per program and numbers of employees in various occupations - data that can really help ATE community members and others better understand the marketplace for their programs.
2023 FLATE Summer Teacher Institute
Register Now - Click below for details
News & Opportunities
FANUC HandlingTool Operations and Programming Course
March 13-16, 8AM - 5PM - 3 Spots Available
The College of Central Florida is approved by FANUC America Corporation as a FANUC Authorized Satellite Training Academic Institution. The FAST designation from FANUC will allow machine operators, programmers, maintenance professionals and machine tool builders to receive a certificate of completion from the only FANUC Authorized Satellite Training Center in Florida. 

Save the Date: FANUC Robot Day at College of Central Florida on April 21, 2023. Discover how to prepare students for careers in advanced manufacturing through industrial robotics and automation education programs. More details coming soon.
2023 Community College Innovation Challenge
Webinar: February 28 2 PM - 3PM
The CCIC is a national competition where teams of community college students work with a faculty or administrator mentor to use science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to innovate solutions to real-world problems, receive full travel support to attend an Innovation Boot Camp in the Washington, DC, metro area, and compete for cash awards. The deadline is March 30, 2023.

Judges Needed at Florida Student Competitions
Judges needed: Orlando area
TSA Florida Conference
February 22-25, 2023
Doubletree Universal
Judges needed: Jacksonville area
Skills USA Florida Conference
April 10 -13, 2023
Hyatt Regency Jacksonville
Texas A&M University Summer Program
for High School Teachers - June 12 -July 21, 2023
Stipend: $1,000 per Week +
Texas A&M University will be hosting a National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) site from June 12 to July 21, 2023. High school teachers will have the opportunity to learn about Artificial Intelligence and Smart System Design, build a smart home prototype, participate in a research project with a graduate student and faculty mentor, learn about related career paths from Industry speakers, and develop a learning module for classroom teaching.  Teachers should be currently teaching in one or more of the following areas: Energy; Information Technology; Manufacturing; Science, Technology, Engineering; and Transportation, Distribution, and Logistics.
STIPEND: $1000/week per week during the summer workshop and $1500 after upon completion of the implementation and evaluation activities.
 Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology at NIST Student Summer Internship (Stipend $650 per week)
The Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST) NanoFab, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and NEATEC are sponsoring internships for your students to take part in during the Summer 2023 term at CNST in Gaithersburg, MD. This term, they will sponsor two students (community college and/or four-year technical college). Starting on May 22, 2023, the internship will last 14 weeks. Students selected for the program must attend the full period as well as a three-day fully paid preparation workshop at SUNY Poly in Albany, New York.   
   
Each student will receive a stipend of $650 per week for the duration of the internship and a one-time payment of $500 to cover travel expenses. Application deadline: April 7 
Resources
Celebrate National Engineers Week with X-STEM
February 19-25
The 2023 X-STEM All Access series for middle and high schoolers is about to begin! Sign-up today to receive notifications of new episodes. Use X-STEM All Access as a classroom resource with free NGSS and CASEL aligned companion lessons! Access the full library of on-demand episodes and lesson plans anytime. It’s FREE! Students will get an inside look into the exciting careers and inspiring personal journeys of diverse STEM role models through an in-depth Q&A session with a fellow STEM professional. 

Click here for National Engineers Week Playlist. Includes interviews with space engineers, ocean scientists and more, plus design challenges for the classroom.
FLATE Resources