AST2 Deal Aims to Bring Manufacturing Technology to Schools

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan marveled at the technology he witnessed. Seated at a computer station at Applied Systems and Technology Transfer's offices, wearing special 3D eyewear, Ryan used a stylus to manipulate objects on the screen before him and use virtual tools to explore the holographic images. The stylus can be used to insert a virtual camera into a set of lungs, for example, or to take apart and even turn over selected objects for a different view, as though an actual physician object was being held and examined.

“It’s just fantastic technology that is going to get into our schools,” the congressman remarked. “It’s going to be like Christmastime time for these kids where they’re going to get toys to play with, but it’s going to be in school and they’re going to be learning this. … We’re really starting to transform the way we educate kids today and the whole community’s going to benefit.”

Ryan was among the participants in the press event Tuesday at the Youngstown Business Incubator where AST2’s president, Jack Scott, announced his company’s contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for its Manufacturing Experimentation and Outreach, or Mentor, program. The agency is a division of the U.S. Department of Defense.

The goal is to stimulate students’ interest in 21^st century manufacturing. Under the contract, AST2 will introduce its Virtual Collaborative Learning Environment, a hardware and software platform technology that allows students to collaborate, communicate in real time using social media applications, and operate digitally controlled equipment through virtual presence technology.

Although children are skilled at learning and adapting to new technology, “all too often they are taught from 20-year-old textbooks at school,” Scott remarked. Further, manufacturing ranks “dead last” among career fields in which young adults express interest. The objective is to introduce the initiative into 1,000 high school curriculums by 2016, starting with 190 this fall.

“We know something has to change” and the initiative announced Tuesday “is about creating the technologies to enable this change,” Scott said. His company's technology platform “has the potential to transform how we learn and how we work and most importantly how we learn to work. And yes this technology is being developed right here in downtown Youngstown," he emphasized.

AST2’s partners in the initiative include Ohio’s Miami University, Kent State University, Lorain County Community College, Northeast Ohio Medical University and KnowledgeWorks. Business partners includes Science Applications International Corp., a Fortune 500 company, Local Motors in Phoenix, which custom designs and builds vehicles, and Infinite Z Inc., the Silicon Valley company behind the zSpace virtual holographic environment technology used by AST2.

The technology “allows models and objects or design elements to be seen in a truly immersive 3D space,” said Mike Harper, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Infinite Z.

Students also will be able to manufacture components and put their designs to the test by assembling the components, “and then find out that it probably doesn’t work because that’s one of the things that’s important for students to learn,” Scott said. “Your first design is probably not going to work.”

“Who would have thought that a few years ago we would be partnering with a Silicon Valley company and Miami University?” remarked Ryan, D-17 Ohio. “We’ve come a long way but it’s because we’re doing the cutting edge stuff that people want to be a part of.”

Max Blachman, northeastern Ohio representative for U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said the project was an example of the kind of activities going on at YBI that Brown toured the day before during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program.

George Brown, representing U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, also made brief remarks at the event.