Metrology Education including GD&T in Engineering Technology

Purdue Polytechnic Columbus is an extension of the Purdue Polytechnic Institute on the main campus in West Lafayette. This location in Columbus benefits from an environmentally-controlled metrology lab located in the Advanced Manufacturing Center of Excellence on the Columbus Airpark Campus. Additionally, Purdue Polytechnic Columbus has filled the lab with measurement tools including a Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM), roundness tester, surface finish tester, an Instron tensile tester, and numerous hand tools among other items. These outstanding facilities have been utilized throughout the Mechanical Engineering Technology curriculum but are emphasized in the Production Design and Specifications class, which also addresses Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T). While engineering programs tend to focus on theory, engineering technology programs focus on practical and applied concepts related to manufacturing and that includes drawings and GD&T. This paper introduces how metrology and GD&T are adopted in the classroom work and how hands-on activities are integrated to reinforce the learning of these critical manufacturing topics. 3-D printing is employed to create relevant objects to measure that highlight the concepts studied in the classroom. Similarly, students are assigned a reverse engineering project that includes making measurements, creating a standards-based drawing with GD&T specifications, 3-D printing the part and then measuring the part for both dimensions and geometric quantities like circularity, cylindricity, parallelism and perpendicularity. Some of these artifacts will be demonstrated during the presentation.