![]() “Colleges adopt and run FlexFactor for local high school students in their service area as a means of engaging students with STEM pathways in higher education,” explained McGrath. To wrap up the program, each team pitches its product ideas to a panel of experts - a process referred to by participants as the “shark tank.” The program usually runs five weeks and includes a tour of an industry facility, a college campus, and mentored workshops. It challenges small teams of students to identify a real-world problem, think of an advanced hardware product that might solve that problem, and then create a business model around their solution. The FlexFactor educational program is designed to be layered over an existing curriculum. They are especially useful for such applications as wearable medical sensors. “Our most mature program is FlexFactor,” said McGrath, “an outreach and recruitment program designed to raise K-12 student awareness about flexible hybrid electronics, advanced manufacturing career pathways, and the role of the Department of Defense in technology development.”įlexible hybrid electronics are conductive circuits that are printed on a flexible substrate, for example, a strip of plastic. One of those programs, FlexFactor, is showing especially great results and impact. McGrath said NextFlex has developed a portfolio of education and training programs to meet this goal. In addition to working on developing FHE manufacturing capabilities, another of NextFlex’s goals is to develop an education and workforce development (EWD) program.Īccording to Emily McGrath, NextFlex’s Workforce Development Director, part of the consortium’s mandate as a manufacturing innovation institute is “to ensure the creation of a skilled pipeline of STEM talent needed to drive technology progress.” The talent in question is not necessarily in research and development, but in the manufacturing of high technology products. NextFlex focuses on the development of flexible hybrid electronics (FHE). Manufacturing innovation institutes are partnerships formed by the Defense Department with industry and academia to help accelerate the development of promising technologies that are useful to both defense and commercial applications. AFRL’s Materials and Manufacturing Directorate at Wright-Patterson has partnered with NextFlex through a cooperative agreement to ensure this specialized workforce development (WFD) is carried out through the mission of the institute. To meet that need, the Air Force Research Laboratory recently tasked NextFlex with finding ways to attract students who might not otherwise consider such a career path.įormed in 2015, NextFlex is a Manufacturing Innovation Institute established by the Department of Defense’s Manufacturing Technology Program. Today, however, with the increasingly rapid pace of high technology, the need to attract young people to the field of advanced technical manufacturing has become even more critical. WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFRL) – Ensuring a steady supply of technical and scientific expertise for American industry and innovation has been a national priority since about 1957 when the Soviet Union launched its first Sputnik. ![]()
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