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February 21, 2019BOCES Provides Crash Course for Knolls Atomic Power Lab Engineers, Welders
What’s a couple of millimeters among friends? Well, if you are an engineer or a machinist working on a project, it could be the difference between success and failure.
To help them better understand why specificity matters in design plans and how the materials they are using in designs work, 19 engineers from the Knolls Atomic Power Lab (KAPL) are taking a crash course this week in machining and the welding in Capital Region BOCES’ Career and Technical School’s state-of-the-art labs at the Center for Advanced Technology at Mohonasen (CAT).
“It’s fun, enlightening and interesting to learn the practical application of the skills we require,”
said Carol Kenyon, a mechanical design engineer for KAPL as she prepared to weld a joint.
Adult education machining teacher Mike McGillycuddy said the KAPL workers are learning
basic machining and 
welding technologies in the state-of-the-arts labs.
“The idea is to give them a better understanding of the materials they are designing and engineering with,” said adult education machining teacher Mike McGillycuddy.
Welding teacher Chris Panny said working with the KAPL engineers is “one of the best times of the year because they love to learn new things.”
KAPL sends its engineers to Capital Region BOCES periodically throughout the year to help them understand how materials are manually manipulated and items are made.
“We interface with machine shops a lot. Coming here gives us a good idea of the issues they deal with working with our designs,” said John Askew, a mechanical engineer at KAPL.
“This gives us an idea of what the machinists get into when working on our projects” added John Tomaszewski, also a mechanical engineer.
