Lawrence Binek, engineer at Raytheon Technologies, served as an industry Subject Matter Expert (SME) on the collaborative NOCTI/America Makes project to develop the “Essentials of Additive Manufacturing” credential which is currently in the pilot testing phase and targeted for release in the summer of 2021.
“This was a great experience and I really looked forward to each working session. It felt like hanging out with friends and talking about our hobbies. It sure didn’t seem like work. We were able to collaborate on the working material smoothly and having different opinions strengthened what we were doing,” Lawrence explains.
“Mechanically, the test development process is brilliantly executed. Somehow, NOCTI administrators were able to distill the chaotic inputs from a very technically diverse team and formulate a comprehensive testing process. This is no small feat as often the SMEs would delve into deep-technical discussions to the point of parsing basic terminology,” said Lawrence. “The framework that NOCTI has generated to facilitate this kind of information gathering is highly efficient and made the entire experience that much more enjoyable.”
Lawrence enjoys training engineers in additive manufacturing design. “It’s amazing to see an engineer harness the advantages of additive manufacturing technology and develop something totally out of the box to solve a problem. The technology behind additive manufacturing has changed and grown so much that what was impossible to achieve 5 years ago is now standard practice. It’s great to see the next generation start harnessing this technology and just run with it!”
Considering serving on a development team? Lawrence has this advice: “Think outside yourself. You are developing a test for someone who ‘isn’t you.’ This is a lot more challenging than it seems since the content you are creating is contextually driven by your knowledge and experience.”
Thank you, Lawrence, for your outstanding contributions and excellent commitment to the NOCTI/America Makes credential project!