When the Future of Flight museum opens this fall at Paine Field, it will include a laser holographic display that just may demonstrate a technology that could be the future of aerospace training.
A group that includes Edmonds Community College and researchers from the Boeing Co. is working on ways to incorporate state-of-the-art holograms into job training programs for aerospace and other industries.
Laser holograms have the potential to allow educators to bring moving, three-dimensional virtual models of objects into the classroom that show, for example, how the pieces of an engine fit together, and how they all work when the engine is running.
The group reported on its preliminary findings to Gov. Christine Gregoire last week. The governor called the technology’s potential exciting as well as timely. During a trade mission to Europe in June, aerospace and biotechnology leaders hammered on the importance of advanced training programs that develop skilled and flexible workers, she said.
“Yesterday, we taught people to do blue widgets and they’d retire in 30 years from blue widgets,” Gregoire said. “Today you do blue widgets and tomorrow you do something else.”
This project has been aimed at aerospace work-force training, but the potential uses go beyond that into any other high-tech industry.
Laser holograms are emerging as a cutting-edge classroom tool, said Jerilee Mosier, vice president of work-force development and training at EdCC.
“We’ve always known that maybe talking heads is not the best way for some people to learn,” Mosier said. Some people don’t absorb lectures well. Others learn better when they can see or handle the object they’re learning about.
The holographic technology will allow students to grasp and move the virtual parts using controllers. And because it’s a virtual model, not a real object, educators potentially could adjust the scale of the display to make it appear that job-training students are walking around inside the machine they’re learning to build.
The goal is to incorporate the new technology and new techniques into regular classrooms so students are “getting from novice to expert in a shorter time,” Mosier said.
That effort is still in the early stages, Mosier said.
“It’s still very new, cutting-edge technology,” she said. The group is testing prototype systems and working to develop a curriculum that incorporates the holograms into the classroom.
So far, the effort has netted close to $5.6 million in federal and state grants, and the group is pursuing more, Mosier told the governor.
“We need a new skilled work force very quickly,” Mosier said. If workers are able to learn new skills in less time, “we’re going to be more able to compete in a global economy,” she said.
Reporter Bryan Corliss: 425-339-3454 or corliss@heraldnet.com.
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