Programming apprenticeship

[mowens]

I was reading a company email today that was talking about various apprenticeship programs the company has. At the  very end it mentioned a new one just started for NC Programming. Note: it's not called cnc programming here. When the job codes were created the machine didn't have computers on them. Just card readers and then punched tape readers.

I'd love to learn more about the program but we're about as far away from production as you can get and still be on Spirit property.

[JParis]

Reaching out to HR for more info is generally a good path...

[TSmcam]

I seem to recall, many years ago when I was visting there, Mike Rosa at CNC Software telling me he had done a CNC Programming apprenticeship. I always thought that would have been a great apprenticeship.

I learnt the long way though. Pencilcam through paper tape and onwards

[mowens]

Reaching out to HR for more info is generally a good path...

Yeah, I'm not curious enough to actually do anything to find out, . I was mostly curious to see what kind of curriculum they were using.  I went to training in 1986 and I don't think they'll be teaching the same things they taught us.

[Brad St]

Yeah, I'm not curious enough to actually do anything to find out, . I was mostly curious to see what kind of curriculum they were using.  I went to training in 1986 and I don't think they'll be teaching the same things they taught us.

I don't know Mowen's, you can't beat knowing the basics of this stuff. Unfortunately I see allot of new applicants coming in that don't understand why things don't work because "it all looks good on the screen"....

What you know has gotten you this far and I'd say your doing good =)

[JParis]

I don't know Mowen's, you can't beat knowing the basics of this stuff. Unfortunately I see allot of new applicants coming in that don't understand why things don't work because "it all looks good on the screen"....

^^^^ This ^^^^^

You just cannot build a solid structure without a rock solid foundation.

[Brian]

Wow, it's great to hear that a company even offers something like this anymore!

While it would interesting to know the curriculum, the prerequisites might be even more interesting to know. In my opinion, you're getting the cart in front of the horse without a foundation of machining basics under your belt first....

[mowens]

In 1986, during an 8 hour shift of training, we would study the APT programming language. We would also study descriptive geometry because we had to draw a to scale sketch of our part in 3 views. These two things alone took up a large part of the day.
We needed the sketch so we could label our geometry and because there was no verification software. We would get a pen plot of the tool centerline, in 3 views, and overlay the pen plot to the sketch to see any crashes. Of course, you would launch the program in the afternoon and get the pen plot and a 3 or 4 inch high printout the next day.

I don't think they'll be teaching those things.

The only requirement I recall was math through calculus.

[CNCAppsJames]

In '86 machine controls and Post Processors were not NEARLY as powerful as they are today which meant you HAD to have a good command of APT and G-Code at least. MACRO language was extremely helpful due to memory limitations. Calculus... I'm not sold on that one unless they are looking for a command of that type of logic.

I personally think I got into the biz at exactly the right time; on the cusp of posts being half-way decent and controls being moderately powerful. Had I had to learn calculus or any higher order math (algebra, calculus, trigonometry, etc...) for that matter in a classroom (pencil and paper method as opposed to using software or the CNC Control), I would not be where I am doing what I do today. That is a 100% absolute guaranteed certainty. My High School Math GPA.... probably between 1.0 and 1.25 My college Shop Math GPA OTOH was moderately respectable 3.0

That said, I'm fairly certain that by anybody's measure that matters, my programming skills and higher order math skills (at the CNC Control and/or software) are adequate for about any job in the industry. I won't be as fast as I once was. But if I gotta put pencil to paper...

I best get back to sweeping floors or cleaning horse stalls.

[mowens]

We were Boeing at the time; we had our own group that wrote all of our post processors, mostly in FORTRAN as I recall. Cad was just starting to be a thing and there were a few CAM systems popping up but we did most of our programming in APT.

I'm not sure why the calculus requirement. APT used matrix transformations and vector calculation but you just had to know how to use them, not necessarily do the calculations. I know machining a surface was a much more involved process. No graphics so you had to visualize everything.

[CNCAppsJames]

We were Boeing at the time; we had our own group that wrote all of our post processors, mostly in FORTRAN as I recall. Cad was just starting to be a thing and there were a few CAM systems popping up but we did most of our programming in APT.

I'm not sure why the calculus requirement. APT used matrix transformations and vector calculation but you just had to know how to use them, not necessarily do the calculations. I know machining a surface was a much more involved process. No graphics so you had to visualize everything.

I learned BASIC, COBOL and FORTRAN as a kid. I had no idea they used FORTRAN for posts. Makes total sense though.

Maybe the Calculus prerequisite was to weed out the riffraff like me.

[HTM01]

back in the late 80's we had a guy that could do some small programs on his HP calculator it had magnetic strips that could hold formulas. he did thread programs for plastic bottle molds. Before that we had to send the information to St Louis where they had a mainframe computer that would do the program and send it back so we could punch tape.