Students’ skills pave way for careers in mechatronics

As it turns out, local kids are not only good at surfing. They shine when it comes to creating robots. Hono­lulu Community College students Harris Oka­zaki and Ryan Yamada, who participated in the 21st annual International Micro Robot Contest in Nagoya, Japan, made this evident.

The Micro Robot Maze Competition pits students from Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan and the United States who attend world-class academic institutions such as Nagoya University and Tokyo University. HCC students participated in the most difficult and most prestigious category whereby the microbots have to navigate a maze with no assistance from the students. HCC’s Yamada placed fourth and his colleague Okazaki placed seventh in a field of 19 contestants.

The competition has implications that go beyond simple kudos. The skills students develop could lead directly to good jobs in the private sector, according to HCC professor Norman Takeya, the supervising academic who accompanied the students to Nagoya.

Takeya said there’s a growing demand for workers in the industrial and manufacturing space who have the mechatronic skills needed to maintain, diagnose and repair sophisticated, automated systems that characterize manufacturing in the 21st century. (Mechatronics is a sort of first cousin to robotics and combines mechanics with software, computer and engineering techniques vital to modern-day production lines). There are too few individuals with these talents on the mainland and in Hawaii.

That’s where HCC students’ participation in the competition can pay big dividends. Takeya was approached by the Hershey Co., which owns Hawaii island-based Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corp., to develop a program that teaches students mechatronic skills. This was in keeping with a Hershey initiative with the Reading Area Community College in its home state of Pennsylvania where it developed an Advanced Manufacturing Integrated Systems Technology program for its employees to become the "multiskilled work force of the future."

Although HCC does not have a mechatronic program, the potential demand for these skills from Hershey and possibly other local companies put Takeya on a course to develop a program within the UH system to train students in this arena.

Mechatronics also will come in handy in more places than the Mauna Loa production line.

Anywhere modern industrial technology is present — such as the astronomical observatory on Mauna Kea, a petroleum processing plant on Oahu, the Pearl Harbor shipyard complex or other food processing facilities — surely will need individuals with these skills.

Unlike the hospitality industry, mechatronics would create good-paying jobs that our kamaaina badly need.

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Mike Meyer, former Internet general manager at Oceanic Time Warner Cable, now manages IT for Honolulu Community College. Reach him at mike.meyer@islandatech.com.