Josh Luther
Q: What is your specialty on the team?
A: I do Computer Numerical Control Machining (CNC), Scouting, CAD, Rapid Manufacture on 3D printers/Silicone molding or my personal CNC Router.
Q: How many years have you been involved?
A: I have helped out on the team for 2 years.
Q: How did you hear/start out on the team?
A: I moved from Florida and the regional chair in Wisconsin needed my brother’s phone number. At which point I asked if they knew anyone in the Philly area in need of a coach. The MAR district chair suggested a couple rookie teams and I ended up choosing FRO.
Q: What do you do for a living?
A: I am a Process Engineer for Jade Precision Medical Components. At work I review and specify processes and inspection methods for making bone screws, plates, and various other orthopedic hardware. I also do some programming, training of inspectors, and work on automating tasks. Today I wrote a simple program that completed two tasks in 20 minutes that would have each taken roughly 18 person hours.
Q: What is your goal do you hope to achieve with students?
A: I hope to mentor students and teach them how to make their dreams into reality. I want students to be able to program CNC machines by the time they graduate. This skill will be something that they could use to pay their own way through college, or start their own company, making their own products someday.
Q: What do you want your students you mentor to know/what life lessons do you want to teach?
A: I want to make sure that students understand what it takes to make a product. Many engineers design components that simply can’t be made, some design component that can only be made with a 3D printer. Other businesses trying to make the engineer’s design believe the Engineer needs exactly what is drawn and will spend a lot of time finding a way to make a very simple part, this increases costs and reduces quality. Resulting in some standard parts and simple screws costing a large amount of money.
Q: What college/high school you go to? What did you major in?
A: I went to the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) and my major was Biomedical Engineering. After graduating high school I worked as a CNC machinist running Morei Seiki and Warner-Swasey CNC lathes as well as a few CNC mills on occasion, then I went to the University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley campus and got my freshman level engineering courses taken care of. Working as a machinist kept my debt down as I started college. After taking some different courses I decided to choose Biomedical Engineering as a major, and transferred to MSOE.