[time-nuts] modern electronics education/jobs (was:

Richard (Rick) Karlquist richard at karlquist.com
Thu Nov 12 21:14:57 EST 2015



On 11/12/2015 1:01 PM, William Schrempp wrote:
>
> has failed. I hear old machinists complaining about new machinists who can't
> drill a hole if the drill-press isn't computer-controlled. And in my work,
> nurse education, I see students who can't be bothered to learn how to take a
> manual blood-pressure, because a machine can now do it (sort of). Much to
> ponder here. . . .

> Bill Schrempp
>

This reminds me of a summer job I had as a lab assistant between my
freshman and sophomore years at college.  There were a couple of
journeyman machinists with Bridgeport mills.  They didn't let me
use them, but they did patiently teach me how to use the drill
press, taps, hacksaw, etc to make simple parts that didn't require
their skills.  They told me that, in Germany, a kid training to be
a machinist would start out by being given a file, a pair of calipers,
and a rough block of metal.  His task was to make a perfect cube with 
sides of exactly 1 cm by 1 cm.  Only after mastering that, would
he be allowed to move onto more advanced equipment.  Fortunately, the 
machinists just told me this story to scare me, but they didn't make me 
file a perfect cube.  They did tell me I needed to learn to drill holes
with 0.005 inch accuracy using a machinist's scale and a center
punch to lay them out.

Rick


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