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May 4-8, 2011 | METALTECH 2011 | Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
May 5-8, 2011 | IMTOS 2011 | New Delhi, India
May 17-19, 2011 | EASTEC 2011 | West Springfield, MA
May 25-26, 2011 | ANPIC 2011 | Leon, Mexico
May 25-29, 2011 | BUTECH 2011 | Busan, S. Korea
June 22-24, 2011 | DMS Expo 2011 | Tokyo, Japan
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Surfware would like to congratulate California State University Chico, a user of SURFCAM for over 14 years, on winning the an academic competition
at the AERODEF 2011 trade show in Anaheim, CA. Students from the CSU Chico Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) club
took home the top award in the SME Manufacturing Challenge
for their design and manufacture of a mountain bike chain guide and bash guard. This was the culmination of a year-long extracurricular activity
for participating students in the university's Sustainable Manufacturing department.
Students Oliver Hayes, Jason Teixeira, Alex Ward, Cody Leuck, Tony Arena,
and Louk Hendricks stand by their project at AERODEF 2011
The sustainable manufacturing program was recently added as a way for students to learn practical business skills in addition to manufacturing
engineering so that they can be more successful when pursuing their careers. These skills were applied to the project as students completed the
product tooling, packaging systems, and an initial production run. The manufacturing processes that were implemented with this project included
product and process engineering, CAD design, CNC machining, tooling design, polymer processing, fixture assembly, packaging, and project management
with complete documentation of these processes. The product was then extensively field tested and met the expectations for function and durability.
The completed Mountain Bike Chain Guide/Bash Guard is composed of three high impact strength injection molded polymer components utilizing recycled
resins, a CNC machined aluminum back plate, and a CNC lathe turned aluminum spacer as well as various metric hardware components including a sealed ball bearing.
By using recycled materials, the students demonstrated the practicality of environmentally friendly (sustainable) manufacturing.
A SURFCAM toolpath to cut the aluminum back plate
The resulting SURFCAM machined product
If you would like to see more about the AERODEF competition, check out the Live TV spot or
watch an interview that was done at the convention.
SURFCAM user, Flexpak Corporation, will be featured on an upcoming TV episode of "World's Greatest!..." on the ION network channel on May
2, 4, and 5th. "World's Greatest!..." is a thirty minute show dedicated to highlighting the world's greatest companies, products, places, and
people. Each show is a fast paced tour around the world featuring behind the scenes footage, informative interviews, and exciting visuals.
Check your local listings for air times.
Flexpak Corporation is an ISO 9001:2008 Certified Custom Thermoformer that produces custom packaging for the medical, food, electronic and
retail industries. Flexpak has an in-house tooling shop that manufactures thermoforming molds and uses 3-D computer controlled technology to
produce the 3-D complex surfaces in our mold cavities.
"SURFCAM 3-Axis Advanced Edition has been a staple of our business for over 10 years," says Tom Sipek, Director of Tooling for Phoenix, Arizona's Flexpak Corportion."We've found that SURFCAM is a time saver and
very easy to use. Thanks to SURFCAM we have been able to keep our in-house tooling costs down. This has contributed to increased sales which
have helped our company grow to the size it is today. Plus, Surfware has continually supported our systems with high-quality technical support
as well as SURFCAM upgrades that always surpass our expectations.
"Recently, we found that using the new 3-Axis Multi-Cut option allows us to do things that only 4- and 5-Axis machines can accomplish. Our
critical medical projects often require complex three dimensional undercuts and using the 3-Axis Multi-Cut option allows us to complete the parts
with ease.
"When we provide prototype molds that produce production quality parts, we have to be able to reproduce the precise prototype mold geometry in
the production tools. SURFCAM allows us to do so and is highly dependable. The dependability that SURFCAM delivers saves us a lot of time and that
translates to a quicker time to market, keeping our customers very happy. Our customers are constantly amazed that the prototypes they approved
can be produced with such precision in a short time.
"Thermoforming molds may not seem as complex as injection molds but, in practice, creating the proper mold is just as difficult when you require
such high precision. This very important requirement is why we consider SURFCAM to be a great tool in creating our thermoform molds."
-Thomas Sipek, Flexpak Corporation (http://www.flexpakcorp.com/)
If you are interested in learning more about the 3-Axis Multi-Cut Option, watch the below video or contact your local SURFCAM Reseller.