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CORVALLIS - As engineering has increasingly turned in recent decades towards high technology, complex electronics and computerized systems, some of the nation's leading programs in engineering education have taken steps to make sure their students also know their way around the "old-school" of machine tools, gears, grinders and sheet metal cutters.

The problem, they say, is that private industry still wants graduates who feel at home in the field or on the factory floor, and can design efficient systems that work in the real world, not just on a blueprint. And for that, there's no substitute for greasy, hands-on experience.

At the College of Engineering at Oregon State University, a program to recognize this need has been uncommonly successful and popular, educators say. It's designed mostly for students in mechanical, manufacturing or industrial engineering, but has also attracted interest from electrical, chemical engineering students and others who literally want to learn the nuts and bolts of how things work.

"The need for this type of education at the college level was not so pronounced 20 years ago, when students used to get some vocational training in high school, machine, welding, woodworking, and worked on their cars, that type of thing," said Steve Adams, an instructor in the program. "But today, these engineering students are taking calculus in high school, not shop class. And a lot of middle schools and high schools are dropping their vocational programs; they're often the first to go when it's time for budget cuts.

"For some of our students this is the first time in their lives they've really worked with sophisticated machine tools," Adams said, "and they seem to love it."

At OSU, the same students who study computerized architecture or the use of artificial intelligence in engineering are also wrestling with lathes, high-speed saws, and sheet metal tools. They learn their way around a grinder, milling machine and even more complex "computerized numerical control" machines that convert a computer drawing into geometry that is then downloaded to the CNC machine and machined into a working part. And they are becoming as adept at using a drill press as they already are with hand-held computers.

"The point is not these students will be doing much with machine tools when they are professional engineers, but what they have learned about how these common tools function, how the process of construction really works, will allow them to design the type of systems that are easier to build and work better," Adams said.

"They will be better engineers with this training and more in demand by potential employees."

This type of hands-on factory work is not available at every engineering college, officials say, but is fairly common at the most prominent schools and is another asset in OSU's goal of becoming one of the top-25 engineering programs in the nation.

It's also a boon to the university's programs of research. Many machined parts and systems can now be manufactured on-site that used to be sent elsewhere for production, and undergraduate students are getting quality experience in building some pretty complex devices. OSU's expanding research and educational programs in micro-engineering, which deals with extraordinarily small but very functional systems, also adds to the new challenges.

About 200 engineering students a year at OSU are now taking these courses, and on some days the machine shop is a blur of whirring saws, drills, sparks and the smell of hot steel and machine oil.

And the students often put their newly learned skills to immediate use. The shop program is especially popular with students who build racecars from scratch as part of competitions sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers, and OSU entries have been very successful at national competitions in recent years. For Adams, these programs also represent a rediscovery of the joy of teaching.

"I taught vocational education classes at the high school, middle school and community college level for about 17 years in the '70s, '80s and '90s, and was getting kind of burned out with it," Adams said. "I was planning to leave teaching behind. But then I accepted this position with the challenge of providing hands-on experience to mechanical engineering students at OSU, at first on a temporary, volunteer basis, and the interest level in it was just so high that we've expanded the program to something much more elaborate. We now have five labs operating in this spring term.

"Teaching kids this bright and enthusiastic, who really want to learn and enjoy the program so much, is just so rewarding," Adams said. "I feel like I've died and gone to heaven."