Next week brings about the new era of the Tormach Open House, Tormach Tech Days!

At Tormach, we find ourselves visiting a lot of different trade shows since we touch people in so many different areas – from education to makers to heavy industry – and last week was no different.

I love STEM events. Students huddling around chemistry experiments, buzzing machines, and the buzzing of learning makes me giddy; all of these bright young minds are going to be our future, and, with our help, our legacy as STEM professionals.

More than 100 middle school students eagerly watched machines run, listened to technical explanations of how things worked, applied their math skills to engineering demonstrations, and got to meet with engineers, machinists, and other leaders.  What made this group is unique is their gender – they were all female.

The first CNC milling machine was developed in 1957, and the concept of modern CNC really hasn’t changed since. Yet, the worlds surrounding CNC – fabrication, engineering, product development, manufacturing, Et al. – have changed dramatically.

FIRST Robotics is a quickly-growing STEM initiative, founded by Dean Kamen, that pits kids against each other in robotic contests while promoting a fine combination of cooperation and competition. Teenagers stew over various engineering issues, component failures, and efficiency quotas all while coordinating their teams like a start-up engineering business – in essence, this is one of the truest forms of STEM education out there.