A.A.S. in Computer and Electronics Engineering Technology (C.E.E.T.)
School: ITT Institute – Canton, MI
The Computer and Electronics Engineering Technology program provided foundational knowledge in the areas of electronics and computer programming. Emphasis was on the electronics curriculum, with a significant amount of focus on the design and troubleshooting of both digital and analog circuitry.
My personal focus included diving more deeply into the topics of Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) and Microprocessors. I found great enjoyment in designing PLC controlled systems and writing the Ladder Logic coding to control the systems. I also found designing and coding microprocessor controllers to be greatly interesting and rewarding, something about writing machine code was very relaxing.
It was a result of this education, and my understanding of mechanical systems, that opened doors to field service technician/engineering work. This was work that primarily involved maintaining electro-mechanical automated systems in manufacturing environments.
Capstone Project
For a culminating project in the C.E.E.T. program my lab partner and I chose to create a rudimentary continuous chemical processing system. Upon pressing the start button two separate liquids were dispensed into a mixing container. In the mixing container the liquids were continuously mixed and heated until the desired temperature was reached. When the correct temperature was attained a set amount of the mixed solution would dispense into a mold on the conveyor belt below the mixing container. Once filled the conveyor would move the mold and place the next mold under the solution dispenser valve for filling. During the process, level sensors in the mixing container would trigger addition of the initial two separate liquids as needed to ensure the process continued seamlessly.
Being two broke college students that were footing all costs for production of the system, it was certainly not an elegant system. In fact, while the heating element did heat, and I made sure it was water tight, it was not intended for liquid heating and took too long to heat the liquid so we compensated for that in the code.
The Allen Bradley SLC-500 was utilized for the control system. Unfortunately I no longer seem to have the code we used, but here is a simple flow chart that shows the general flow of the process and what the ladder logic was based on:
Here is an image of the system. A picture of the final system may have been lost to time (as you can tell from the computer monitor in the background it was some time ago… 2006).
