RCBI Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

W.Va. Students Train With Computer Controlled Machines

A group of students recently got a taste of how to create metal equipment with computer-controlled machines.

The Robert C. Byrd Institute is offering free CNC Machining Bootcamps to attract new people to the field of machine manufacturing. CNC stands for Computer Numerical Controlled, meaning that the machines are operated through computer inputs.

Rick Smoot is an instructor for the inaugural bootcamp. He says that the bootcamp works as an introduction to working with CNC metal mills and lathes.

“It introduces people to manufacturing, specifically machining; how to set coordinates; operate the machines to produce good parts,” he said.

Carol Howerton is the senior strategic advisor for Workforce Development at RCBI. She says the bootcamps are accessible for anyone, regardless of their familiarity with manufacturing.

“We may have someone fresh out of high school, a 17 year old up to a 60 year old,” Howerton said. “It’s a great skill to have, whether it’s for a hobby; you want to do something around the house, or you want a full time career.”

The bootcamps are offered through the U.S. Department of Defense-funded America’s Cutting Edge, or ACE initiative, and in partnership with the National Composites Institute.

“We have guys that maybe have been displaced. We also have people that through workman’s comp, can’t do the normal job they used to do and are being retrained,” Smoot said. “A lot of veterans! Generally all it takes is a really genuine interest in it.”

According to Michael Gomez, a Senior Innovation Research and Development Engineer at MSC Industrial Supply Company, ACE aims to improve American manufacturing by developing new technology and using it to train people in manufacturing.

“We’re going to help show people with CNC Machining early on and understand machine dynamics early on, so that when those students and those people go out into industry, they understand what it is,” Gomez said.

Gomez gave a presentation at the bootcamp on the CNC program Mill Max.

The program works by tapping the metal mill’s tool-tip with a hammer, and measuring the tip’s vibrations. This measurement can be used to optimize the mill’s speed, which affects its cutting efficiency.

Noah Smith is both a student with RCBI’s associates program for CNC Machining and their bootcamp. He works at a machine shop and says he applied to the bootcamp to expand his skills.

“There’s a lot of machine shops around here that deal with RCBI and looking to employ students that come straight out of here,” Smith said.

RCBI plans to offer the bootcamps monthly starting in January, with more programs available in Charleston and Huntington.

Marshall University To Help Unlock The Secrets Of Water Bears

The National Science Foundation awarded Marshall University a $366,624 grant to study tardigrades in a partnership with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The National Science Foundation awarded Marshall University a $366,624 grant to study how protective structures adopted by tardigrades help protect them from their environment. The study will be part of a partnership with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Tardigrades, also known as water bears or moss piglets, are micro-animals that are found in almost every place on earth. They are known for being able to survive the harshest environments.

“Tardigrades produce these compounds known as free radicals, which are reactive chemical species, when they’re exposed to stressors,” said Derrick Kolling, chair of the Marshall University Department of Chemistry.

You can see responses to extreme conditions in nature, but the reason why tardigrades are unique is their vast variety of responses to environmental stressors such as vacuums, UV radiation, dehydration, high salt concentration, and freezing temperatures. A common response by tardigrades includes forming into a tun.

“Forming this structure called a tun, they sort-of shrink down; extrude water, and then they can stay in that state for a very long period of time,” Kolling said.

When a tardigrade is stressed, it enters a quasi-death state. The animal retracts its head and its eight legs and curls into a dried-up ball.

According to Kolling, looking into these chemical structures could help development in space travel and pharmaceutical storage. They might even help fight against aging.

“Throughout our lives, we develop damage in our bodies,” Kolling said. “Not that we’re necessarily going to form one of these protective states, but these things might give us insight into how humans might protect our DNA.”

In a partnership with Robert C. Byrd Institute, the research team is starting the Tardigrade Trading Post outreach program. The trading post will send scientific kits designed by the research team to be used by citizen researchers. This includes students K-12; what Kolling referred to as little citizen scientists.

The Robert C. Byrd Institute is designing 3D printed microscopes that citizen researchers can use to gather tardigrades from their backyards. On top of providing young students an opportunity to learn about micro-species, Kolling hopes that this will help the team harvest a wide variety of tardigrade species.

“A lot of water bear species are parthenogenic, which means that you only need the female to reproduce so they can reproduce asexually,” Kolling said. “I think the odds of finding a new species are pretty decent, especially if people are willing to go to places like Dolly Sods. We could raise them in the lab. If we find interesting conditions, we would characterize them genetically.”

The grant will support the graduate and undergraduate student research team for the next three years.

Derrick Kolling, chair of the Marshall University Department of Chemistry

Webinar Explains How Businesses Can Apply For Navy, Marine Contracts

There are no U.S. Navy and Marine Corps bases in West Virginia, but there are still opportunities for businesses in the Mountain State to work with them.

Small businesses in West Virginia can learn about contracting opportunities during a free virtual workshop on Dec. 8. The program is hosted by the Robert C. Byrd Institute at Marshall University.

The webinar will feature presentations by the Department of the Navy Office of Small Business Programs, the Regional Contracting Assistance Center and West Virginia District Office of the U.S. Small Business Administration.

It is designed to offer information for conducting business with these military branches and explain how to find upcoming contracting opportunities.

In fiscal year 2020, U.S. small businesses were awarded more than $135 billion in contracts through the Department of Defense.

“Only a small fraction of this $135 billion went to small businesses in West Virginia and the central Appalachian region,” said Derek Scarbro, RCBI deputy director. “We want to change that. This is a great opportunity to learn about available contracting opportunities, how to become a vendor and what resources are available to help navigate the process.”

To register for the webinar, contact RCAC’s Sommer Straight at sstraight@rcacwv.com or Scarbro at dscarbro@rcbi.org for more information.

RCBI is presenting Doing Business with the U.S. Navy & Marine Corps as part of the AIM Higher Consortium, a strategic initiative to strengthen the Defense supply chain in West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania. To learn more, visit www.aimhigherconsortium.org.

Grants to Help Create Jobs in Southern West Virginia

State and Federal officials were in Huntington Thursday afternoon to announce a series of grants aimed at helping create employment in the southern part of the state.

Three grants in excess of $6 million will target manufacturing, agriculture and healthcare in the southern part of the state. The grants were awarded at the Robert C. Byrd Institute in Huntington. The Appalachian Hatchery project will boost workforce training opportunities through RCBI. The Sprouting Farms program will help facilitate an agricultural industry in nine counties in southern West Virginia.

And the third program to receive money was the Sustainable Employment for Community Health Workers program. The initiative started by Marshall University’s Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine will create 26 permanent community health worker jobs in coal-impacted communities.

United States Representative Evan Jenkins said this is a step in the right direction.

“We’ve now got things turned around, we’re getting the policies right, we’re trying to get coal moving again, but we’re also making investments to make sure West Virginia diversifies it’s economy, jobs are the future,” Jenkins said

United States Senator Joe Manchin echoed Jenkins sentiments.

“This funding will help Marshall University boost training opportunities in advanced manufacturing and will create and retain over 330 jobs,” Manchin said. “This investment will foster sustainable economic growth and improve our communities and our workforce.”

The grants were awarded by the Appalachian Regional Commission, the U.S. Economic Development Administration, the Benedum Foundation and the One Foundation.

Entrepreneurs, Small Businesses Owners With Big Goals Wanted

Colleges and technical schools in southern West Virginia are teaming up to encourage entrepreneurs.

Concord University, Marshall University, the Robert C. Byrd Institute for Advanced Flexible Manufacturing (RCBI), the Natural Capital Investment Fund and TechConnect West Virginia are collaborating to encourage tourism and advanced manufacturing across southern West Virginia.

Concord University and the Robert C. Byrd Institute are hosting a workshop to share business growth and opportunities in southern West Virginia. The workshop will explain how the 3^rd District Accelerator grant can help people who have businesses or business ideas reach their goals.

The 3^rd District, or 3D, Accelerator provides integrated business support efforts and technical assistance, including grant writing workshops, training and more.

Small business owners, entrepreneurs and those interested in more information are encouraged to attend the workshop to learn how the 3rd District Accelerator grant can help them realize their small business goals.

It’s funded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Appalachian Regional Commission.

The workshop is scheduled for next Tuesday, Dec. 3 at the Mercer County Technical Education Center in Princeton from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m.

How tough is it to start your own business in WV?

The West Virginia Small Business Development Center showed a crowd of entrepreneurs and business owners how technology can help tackle small business needs.

In the third of five planned workshops throughout the state, the West Virginia Small Business Development Center walked entrepreneurs through the process of beginning their own business. This workshop focused on the necessity of technology to make it in today’s market. Justin Gaull is the Technology Commercialization manager for the Center.

“An SBDC business coach works to serve as a connector so we help the entrepreneurs in West Virginia find resources that they can use to move the businesses or their ideas forward. We also serve as a coach and help them through the leadership and strategy issues of their business and also on a personal level is business right for me,” Gaull said.

Gaull said begin the tackling the tasks of starting a business. Last week’s session focused on everything from the early stages of development justification for innovation, how to analyze the market for the product and how to get to the level they want to attain. Gaull said the process can look like a mountain to climb at the beginning.

"It sometimes appears daunting to try to get in and try to commercialize some new product or technology and what we try to do is walk them through that visionary process that is sometimes negated in the very beginning," Gaull said.

“It sometimes appears daunting to try to get in and try to commercialize some new product or technology and what we try to do is walk them through that visionary process that is sometimes negated in the very beginning. Someone has a great idea and they bring that prototype into the office and they’re ready to move forward from that point and sometimes that’s not the best thing and sometimes that’s not the best move, sometimes they need to back up and ask those key questions,” Gaull said.

Pryce Haynes of Huntington attended the conference with the idea of using college logos on different kinds of merchandise. He said it definitely seems like a larger undertaking.

“I think right now we’re opening a can of worms if you will, you look at the business model and maybe there are five steps or however many steps there are to it, well each step contains 30 more steps, so on and so forth. So there are a lot of angles and things to consider along each step of the way,” Haynes said.

Tom Minnich is the Director of Special Projects and Business Development with the Robert C. Byrd Institute in Huntington. RCBI is a non-profit training service that provides small businesses access to what they need to continue developing their business. The institute serves as co-sponsor of the workshops. He says the workshops are essential because many people that come to them with ideas aren’t prepared.

“There is people out there that did not do their homework and did not do their searches, they have an idea, but the sister product is already out there on the street and then some people come in with a real realistic idea, but they don’t know how to get to the next level with it, it’s still in their head and not reality,” Minnich said.

Previous workshops were held in Bridgeport and Charleston and the next two will be held in the eastern panhandle and once again in Bridgeport.