Reader Question: Are You a Mechanical Engineer Who Needs to Learn Robotic Programming Skills?

A Changing Industry and Continuous Learning 

The industry is changing. Driven by automation, digital transformation, and IIoT, people are forced to adapt quickly as skillsets are constantly evolving now more than ever. As a mechanical engineer (ME), have you found yourself doing more programming tasks in your daily workflow?

Even some educational programs have moved to a blended curriculum of mechanical, electrical, and robotics. We'd like to hear from you about how new software and resources help build your programming knowledge.

Universal Robots hands-on training programs. Image courtesy of Universal Robots. 

With so many new training modules and online learning resources, it can be inundating to find valuable information and classes. Control Automation is aiming to provide you with educational resources based on real-life struggles in the industry. Over the next several weeks, we want to hear from you.

As an ME, or someone who has recently had to develop skills in robotic programming, what kind of resources are you looking for? What are the pain points of learning how to program a robot?

Existing Robotic Programming Resources

Over the last several years, many leaders in industrial robotics have released training programs to help people better use and program their robots. FANUC, Universal Robots, ABB, and others all have widely known resources and application kits designed to help engineers. Some of the most common robotic training resources include the following:

• FANUC
• Universal Robots
• ABB
• Denso
• Yaskawa
• Mitsubishi
• KUKA

While these training programs can be a helpful resource, we'd like to use those training programs and expand on them to help you further understand how to program these robots. Of these industry leaders, and others not listed here, which do you use to program your robots?

What kinds of questions do you have about these training modules? These questions could be about a specific portion of the programming process, or simply how to get started with one. 

Over to You

We want to hear from you. This series is an opportunity for the Control Automation audience and users to provide suggestions and insights in terms of the kind of information and experiences you’re looking for. Control Automation invites you to comment below on what you think would be helpful to learn, challenges you’re facing, and your questions.

We will then compile your questions and input to create resources, find accessible education, and introduce technology that can point you toward a solution for programming your robots.

ABB's wizard programming tools. image courtesy of ABB. 

While we put together a list of some handy sites, classes, and content to start this series, please leave comments below, or join the conversation in the Control Automation forum. 

Comment on this article to have the chance to be heard by our experts to create the type of content you have been scouring the internet for but can’t find. Control Automation will use your responses to provide content to answer questions, suggest technology, or link to classes that might provide the valuable skills necessary to get you the information you need.