Intellecta Technologies Pty Ltd

for PICAXE education, Roland CAM, New MDX-540 ,Techsoft CAD, Intellecta control, Atmel, Arm and Microchip

News 2006

2006 is a critical year for most technology educators. New curriculum statements, growing skills shortages and the revitalisation of the technology education strategies, has meant that many schools have looked at new opportunities.

The schools have seen a great increase in interest in CAD software and the obvious extension to CAM will come quickly.

Intellecta raised the awareness of the new MDX-40 machine in many schools and introduced a numbe rof new products such as the new MDX-540 from Roland, new curriculum materials and new support document for the Intellecta 5IT program in Malaysia. A successful trial extended the project into the Invention curriculum and the Intellecta defined training package was well received at the highest education levels. The support company in Malaysia, is expecting an order for the 5It Invention materials.

Special projects were started with the DATTA technology teachers in Western Ausrtralia with two donated MDX-20;s doing the rounds with interested teachers.

Intellecta was awarded the e 3D dealer of the Year award by Roland in recognition of the high sales and best support for 3D customers.

Summary:

Townsville Solid Edge Training

Mt Gravatt Training

Training at Leongatha

Scotch College - Art department launch

Pewter casting - it’s easy

Launch of new training boards

Picaxe and invention in Malaysia

TTA SA trade show

TEAV trade show Melbourne

NAMIG presentation

Student design project

National Manufacturing exhibition

Solid Edge USers meeting

INTAD conference

Solid Edge in Adelaide

MDX-40 at Laverton

School and Community projects

Manufacturing Melbourne

Opening of NTEC by Lyne Kosky

PICAXE at Victoria University

Swinburne University

Design night at TAFE

Support for NAMIG

Jigs and Fixtures,Student design project

Workplace Excellence program grant

New controller

New construction kit

ASISTM GRANT

Lutheran Teachers Conference

Intellecta at Swinburne

Box Hill Senior Secondary College Training

Roland Office opening

ASISTM coordinators meeting

March 2006

Townsville Solid Edge Training

The start of the 2006 school year was also the start of a link with Marty Harris from Northern Beaches Christian School in Sydney. Marty is an Intellecta customer with an MDX-20 and his grwoing interest in CAD software has expenaded to be the main education contact for the great CAD package called Solid Edge. Marty ran a Solid Edge course in Townsville and Intellecta displayed the MDX-40 to a number of teachers.

The trip was also a training venue for Pimlico High school with Matt Francis at the MDX-40 wheel. An innnovative grant helped supply the MDX-40.

A training day was enjoyed by all and foreshdowed by the destructive cyclone - Larry that struck later in the week.                                                                          to summary-

Marty in action

Matt Francis and team on the MDX-40

Mt Gravatt Training

Mt Gravatt State High School launched into the MDX-40R with a staff training session. This brought together staff from several faculties to better integrate the activities and student projects

to summary-

Training at Leongatha

Leongatha in the picturesque region of Victoria, took delivery of the MDX-40 and a training session was held on engraving, PCB design and 3D machining.

to summary-

Scotch College - Art Department

Scotch College in Melbourne has a great art faculty that has been extended by the 3D capacity of the new MDX-40 with Rotary axis. Many of the manual processes will be replaced by CAM operation of the great new machine.

 to summary-

Pewter Casting

Intellecta was inspired by the great casting teaching examples conducted by James Moroney and Neil Butters at “churchie” in Brisbane. The pewter casting project was extended to machining the forms in foam, casting in silicone rubber and pewter casting into the mould. “Stumpy” the pewter crocodile grew out of the project. The name was chosen because the long tail broke off near the body - just like the real thing.

 to summary-

Launch of new training boards

The new training boards finally were extended from the engraved prototypes to real systems. DeLaSalle College in Melbourne were part of the development team on this project. The systems were quickly adopted by the technology education program at Griffith University.                                          to summary-

Picaxe part of Invention program Malaysia

Intellecta has been working on the Malaysian invention curriculum for many years. This was the extension to the very successful trial conducted in 6 schools after the 5IT concept was introduced to the Ministry of Education. Many meetings and presentatons were required and the Malaysian team put together the need for a PICAXE personal fan that turns on at a certain temperature. The design was quickly produced, boards engraved and the package sent to Malaysia to be part of the presentation. Download schematic                                                   to summary-

Technology Teachers Assosciation of South Australia

The Technology Teachers Association (SA) is an active professional association which provides support for teachers of technology.TTA aims to further Technology Education as An Area Of Study in schools by supporting teachers through all areas of professional development.

The 2006 conference was run at Adelaide High School with a theme of “learning by design”.

                                                                       to summary-

Technology Education Association of Victoria

The Victorian Technology teachers are part of the TEAV group. The conference had a new venue at Northland Secondary College and it was great to meet a large number of technology educators. Intellecta ran a session on the PICAXE range of products and associated boards. The session was well received                                                 to summary-.

NAMIG Presentation

The NAMIG group teamed up with the Investigator Science centre for a presentation at the Elizabeth Playford Centre. This proved to be a great day for young and all as they used the portable science exhibits. Intellecta is a partner of the NAMIG initiative and ran a small display that showed a product being milled on the Roland MDX-20 and vacuum formed on a former.                      to summary-

Student design project

Intellecta welcomes the interest from up and coming design students with access to our great Roland machining centres. Benjamin Hill had such a project and it was a pleasure to machine the design in prototyping foam for his exhibition. The simple software makes it easy to define complex tool paths.           to summary-

National Manufacturing Exhibition

This large trade display at Darling Harbour in Sydney is the highlight of the manufacturing shows in Australia. The show has the immense CAM machining centres as well as a number of software and tooling vendors.

The Roland display was very busy with the new low cost LPX-600 scanner showing total 3D scanning of objects.

 to summary-

Solid Edge Users Group Meeting

CAD software has a number of strong, evolutionary packages and Solid Edge has a professional group of users from a variety of industries. Roland and Intellecta were invited to a users group meeting at Blacktown Town Hall in Sydney.

Items shown were the LPX-600 laser scanner and the MDX-40 milling machine. These generated a string awareness in the users group and added another dimension to their understanding.                                                   to summary-

INTAD Conference

Industrial Technology and Design Teachers Association - INTAD, is the strongest technology group in Australia. The conference is the highlight of our year. The teachers and workshops are excellent with many new ideas and concepts thrown around. The Greek Club venue plays havoc with diets.

Matthew Landrigan from Roland DG Sydney helped get the new MDX-540 for the first public showing outside Japan. . Good feedback was generated.

Dan O’Kane from Clontarf State High school excelled himself by bringing along students to talk about the PICAXE controller program running at the school. It was positive to have a technology education conference that actually has students available - onya Danny.                                 to summary-

Launch of Solid Edge in Adelaide

Marty Harris from Technically Speaking ran the first Solid Edge course in Adelaide at Westminster College. John Warren provided support and assistance in getting the course underway.

The Roland MDX-40 proved a hit in manufacturing one of the designs from student work.

 to summary-

Launch of MDX-40 at Laverton High School

Henry Szcuta hosted the first Roland MDX-40 installation at his school at Laverton. The main aim is to manufacture a range of CAD designs based on the Formula F1 (C) designs from balsa materials.

Mr Damanio is the main science teacher at the school and has taken the lead in getting involved with CAM processes.

 to summary-

School projects and community assistance

September was a really great month for Intellecta with two, young inspirational visitors to our facility.

Jacob Kleinig from Glenunga International High School spent a week on a work experience program. We put his construction skills ( well honed on K’NEX) to design skills around the Intellecta Mechatronics kit. The theme was fairground experience and it is easy to see where he spends his time. The models were fantastic and he rapidly grabbed the skills in using nuts, bolts and screw drivers in the assembly process. The kit is a real world example that contrasts with the many “easy to use and no skills gained kits”. He also documented the assembly process with Prodesktop.

Matt Douglas from Tatachilla Lutheran College rang earlier in the year to purchase some assembled PICAXE boards. On discussion, it appeared that the boards could only provide base essentials for his design project and Intellecta offered to work with him in designing, making his own specific design. Sounds like the 5IT program!!!.

He successfully designed a PCB with PCB Wizard, exported the design to PCB Design and Make and assembled his own system. Furthermore, he designed the outer shell of the unit and we vacuum formed it at Intellecta.

Needless to say, he produced a great folio of work and is destined to an apprentice program.

These two young individuals are inspirational and we are humbled to have spent a short time with you.

Best of luck in the future!!!                              to summary-

Manufacturing Technology Melbourne

It was Melbourne’s turn to host the manufacturing technology show at the Exhibition Centre. This was a combination of three main areas and the Roland display showed the ease of making PCB;s with the Roland MDX-15 and MDX-20 machines.

Intellecta fielded questions and inquiries on PCB design with the machines.

The MDX-540 was unveilled to the Victorian arena and proved of great interest.

 to summary-

Opening of Northland Technology Education Centre- NTEC by Lyne Kosky - Minister for Education

Northland Secondary College is a coeducational Victorian government school. It is situated next to Northland Shopping Centre in East Preston, which is a major public transport hub for the Northern suburbs of Melbourne.

The college has extensively refurbished facilities and specialist rooms including a fully equipped music recording studio and midi-lab. A new  $3.5 million Technology and Manufacturing Centre called Ntec has been completed. Stages 1 and 2, the Engineering, Automotive and Furnishing areas, will open for the 2005 school year and stage 3 for 2006. Ntec will be used by Northland students . It will also be used to run VCE VET courses for students from other schools.

NTEC via the great leadership of Tim Beare and Janedin Rivers and others, has incorporated the Roland CAD/CAM systems with gusto and will be expanding into the Intellecta control systems in 2007/

It was a pleasure being invited to the opening ceremony for the centre and being associated with this centre in a learning partnership. This opening showed the resourcefullnes of the teachers and the great leadership by the principal- Raffaela Galati-Brown.

NTEC was formally opened by the Minister of Education - Lyne Kosky. She was presented by the special pen and pencil kit made by Janedin and the great school logo engraved onto Perspex on the Roland MDX-40.

It was a heartfelt celebration and Tony Pugatschew enjoyed meeting some of the guests. A great discussion has had with Martin Ferguson, Member for Bateman, Labour Party who regretted the past closure of the technology colleges supported by both sides of the political fence.

Hopefully, these new centres will be a phoenix that rejuvinates many students who have skills in engineering, manufacturing and construction.

Intellecta looks forward to this partnership and others in the future.                    to summary-

The principal, Mr Ferguson and the Minister and guests next to a metal lathe

Tim and Janedin discuss the plans and format of the activities

Janedin completes the pen and pencil lathe project.

The Minister, Lyne Kosky arrives for the opening.

Raffaela Galati-Brown introduces guests

Lyne Kosky shows the great engraving

PICAXE course at Victoria University

It was great to drop into Victoria University and see the PICAXE course using the Intellecta designed HB series of boards. The students enjoyed the professional teaching and the great activities designed by Peter Averill and the team.

Victoria University is the home of 4 MDX-20’s designed for PCB manufacture. It is the leading institution in Australia

 to summary-.

MDX-650 Rotary axis at Swinburne University at Technology

It is always a pleasure to visit Soullis Tavrou (Product Design Engineering Lecturer) at Swinburne with Mattie Landrigan from Roland DG. The MDX-650 is heavily used by the product design students and a short training course was conducted on the MDX-650 rotray axis.

 to summary-

Design Night at TAFE, Light Square

Intellecta sponsored a student jewelry student to present her work at this opening night. It was good to see a packed display area with a variety of art, jewelry, ceramics and fabric works.

Of course, these are young budding designers and the next few years will be critical in their development.

Intellecta supports a number of these projects as part of its community mission statement.

 to summary-

Support for NAMIG project

IKevin Bothma is one of the inspirational teachers in the NAMIIG project supported a student design for a fish feeder. He designed the parts and Intellecta machined these on the MDX-40. to summary-

Jigs and fixtures for the MDX-40

The MDX-40 is a great versatile machine and Intellecta has enhanced the use with a tapped table. Odd shapes can be clamped with a M8 clamp kit and this ensures safety and machining efficiency.

The clamp table uses an aluminium plate that is drilled and tapped with an array of M8 holes. The manufacture of tthis tabe is part of the training materials available for the MDX-40. All users of ths machine will have access to these notes via a web site access.

Experimental extra fixtures for the co2 dragster project were also investigated.

As always, all components have been manufactured on the MDX-40.

 to summary-

Clamp table in action holding down sme acrylic plate

Co2 dragster loaded into rotart axis fixture. The model is 300mm in length.

Roughing process ready to start on second side.l

Close up view of fine finishing cut on top side

Roughing process on second side of the model

Finished cut on the first sidel

STL file in Modela Player 4 for setting up the tool paths

Workplace Excellence Program - Advanced Design Technology Electronics Centres - ADTEC

This project commenced almost a year ago with initial discussions with Ivan Chester, Lecturer at Griffith University, The idea was to form a cluster of schools around the teacher training program at Griffith and focus on the development of modern electronics teaching resources. These would have a component of microcontrollers, design, CAD/CAM and circuit manufacture. The model was based on the 5IT curriculum model that was introduced to Malaysian and trailled successfully in 6 schools. The positive outcome of this trial stimulated the invention proposal that is being considered in December 2006.

The Queensland model was expanded to included TAFE acreditation courses and the strong involvement of industry.

The project has been funded by the Department of Employment and Training and Education Queensland.

Three schools - Calamvale, McGregor, Clontarf form the main hub centered around Griffith University.

 to summary-

This project will incorporate a number of Intellecta 5IT resources such as the Intellecta Control 1, Intellecta icon control, PICAXE systems, ATMEL boards, Roland Mills, PCB Design and Make and materials from PICBLOK Corporation.

Launch of new controller

The new 18X system arose from many user group discussions for a single board system that has enhanced motion outputs. The new 18X was designed to have two servos, 2 DC motors, 2 switches, led, buzzer and expansion port for sensors or I2C control.

 to summary-

Launch of new construction kit

The Intellecta mechatronics kit has been enhanced with a new motor design and special parts moulded in unbrakeable transparent plastic . The system will be offered in industrial control models - turntable etc.

A highlight of the new product is the strong corporate branding.

We need screw drivers/wires/connectors to introduce a real world component to the projects.

 to summary-

ASISTM Grant awarded to Intellecta and South Australian Schools

Intellecta’s vision for integrated problem based learning , 5IT, received strong support by the Malaysian Education department and this vision has been instrumental in developing school programs in Australia.

The 5IT program received a boost from Julie Bishop, Federal Minister for Education, in the form of a an ASISTM grant - Invent IT. This program involves students and teachers engaging through invention to design scientific solutions and extend concepts into reality, creating objects that can be physically tested, prototyped and refined into real models. Authentic tasks will engage students through modelling real world design and manufacturing in an investigative atmosphere involving science, technology, engineering and mathematics

The ultimate aim is to boost five 5 critical areas -thinking, designing, making, controlling and measuring (5IT) through a focus on inquiry based learning or problem based activities.

Projects directly relate to environmental and industrial issues utilising real time data logging and analysis.

Letter from the Minister - download PDF

 to summary-

• 1.SA Department of Education and Children's Services
• 2. Organisation Intellecta Technologies
• 3. Organisation Technology Teachers Association (TTA)
• 4. School Seaton High School (Seaton), SA
• 5. School The Heights School (Modbury Heights), SA
• 6. School Unley High School (Netherby), SA
• 7. School Le Fevre High School (Semaphore South), SA
• 8. School Glenunga International High School (Glenunga), SA
• 9. School Henley High School (Henley Beach), SA

Intellecta presentation at Lutheran Teachers conference

It was a pleasure to spend a day at the Lutheran schools conference hosted by Peter Maple from Immanuel College in Adelaide. The days was divided into several sections - Industrial training from Sage with Peter Dawson, David Large from DECS on Safety issues and the afternoon session on Electronics.

Intellecta presented some view of electronics training via PICAXE and this was supported by great examples by Jason Rozenwieg from Endevour College and Matt Pierce from Cornerstone College

Teachers had a good time discussing issues such as CAD software, role of CAM machines in the technology program and training issues on electronics.

 to summary-

Intellecta presentation at Swinburne School of Design

The PICAXE microcontrollers are effective and efficient entries into modern electronics, particularly for students that want to introduce the sophistication of control without a strong background in electronics.

Intellecta presented a workshop at the TEAV conference and Judith Glover from Swinburne was interested in specific software applications. Tony Pugatschew ran a short course with the HB series to show the possible applications.

 to summary-

Training at Box Hill Senior Secondary College

Box Hill Senior Secondary College have a strong technology centre and this was recently enhanced with the acquisition of Roland 3D Mills, software and accessories. The mighty MDX-650 was the centre of the new vision.

Intellecta in conjuction with Mattie Landrigan from Roland ran a three day training session for Dave Sellers, Dave Fulton and Charles Gilbert ( knows as the three Daves.). The focussed session covered all the operation points on the  machines and specific projects such as 3D milling, engraving and PCB design were covered.

Intellecta prides itself on the advantages of supporting training rather than the usual selling of machines with no support, no applications, no experience, and it was reassuring that the staff reported that the session was the “best training that they have attended since leaving teachers college”. We are humbled by this support and reassured by our training vision.

Every member of the team had their own highlight - from the simple PCB designed and manufactured by Charles, to the engraving steps undertaken by the two Daves.

 to summary-

Setting up the machine origin - look at the concentration!!

Charles with the MDX-40 can now engrave circuit boards and run student designs in a safe, environmentally compatible manner.

Dave Fulton with the first machined part

Dave, regional director, Mattie, principal, Charles and Dave - all happy with a great learning environment.

Training at Roland Office, Melbourne

Training is an important addition to purchase of any high technology equipment and both Intellecta and Roland have a strong link in this area.

The growing size of the machines precludes just dropping in on a school and there are some benefits in networking and meeting other users in a central facility.

Hence the establishment of a formal training and demonstration centre at the Roland offices in Surrey Hills ( 603 Canterbury Road).

Intellecta launched the first school training sessions by inviting teachers to afternoon displays of the MDX-40, MDX-540 and the important support  concepts such as the training DVD, new jigs and fixtures designed by Intellecta and new products such as the LPX-60.

This first session was well supported by Russell Cooper ( educaton manager Roland) and Matthew Landrigan ( Roland). The advantages of networking was apparent with immediate interaction with David Fletcher from Huntingdale and Tas from Kew High School.

The presentations examined:

• Solar boat challange that has been an amazing success
• New electronics projects
• New future challenges and projects on environmental themes
• The place for new machines in the curriculum
• Developing a support network

 to summary-

ASISTM Coordinators and team session

Intellecta Technologies is the coordinator for the round 3 ASISTM grants. The project is -iinventIT.

A special introductory session was held for the schools and coordinators on December 1st .

All groups presented their projects that ranged from Electronics training, mathematics education to environmental projects.

 to summary-

Steve O’Connor ( Glenunga International High School) and Ian Pfitzner ( The Heights) listening attentively.