Goodbye old friend

With a heavy heart I must announce that my dear Drawing Board has gone to a better place (Sold on Ebay). We first met at British Aerospace in 1991 and spent many hundreds of hours together happily designing defence equipment for armoured vehicles and artillery. Of course then CAD came along, but Drawing Board and I remained friends. Then when I moved on from BAE Systems I took her with me, and when I started Chelker she joined me in my office, and was useful for laying out automation and special purpose machinery. Sad to say in the last few years we have worked more and more in 3D using SolidWorks Professional, so the end was inevitable, and I said my last goodbye.
Neil

Harry Andrews

If there's any silver lining shining through the current economic cloud, it's that people have finally recognised the importance of manufacturing. Business has been brisk at Chelker for the past two years, and that's because most of our customers are also extremely busy with manufacturing projects that need our design engineering experience.

A looming problem is that too few youngsters are entering engineering as a career, and as the sector grows we are going to need fresh talent. Since our last blog post, we have had two more work experience teenagers; Faye Hammer from Westholme School in Blackburn, and just last week Harry Andrews from Ermysted's in Skipton. Both enjoyed learning the intricacies of SolidWorks. Both were very bright and enthusiastic about careers in product design and engineering. It was a pleasure to have them here.

Neil

Here is Harry's take on his week;


For my weeks work experience placement I have been at Chelker Technology Ltd. It has been a really interesting and enjoyable experience. It has been a really good opportunity for me to get out into the workplace and experience it first hand. As well as learning about the workplace I have also picked up some key knowledge about engineering and design and also the precision needed when designing a product/machine, whilst on placement I have learnt about many features and things to look out for when designing. I have also been doing some design work of my own using solidworks, a CAD program. I have learnt how to make designs better by using evaluation and analysis. I have seen all the precise and accurate planning and discussion that goes on whilst designing a product, and think that I may decide to enter the world of design as a future career. I don’t want to leave!

Many thanks to Neil, John and Mark for making this experience so enjoyable!

Harry

Harry's coffee table ResMat project

Emily Phillips

Emily recently completed a 2 week period of work experience with us, and we would like to thank her for her help. She is currently studying for GCSE's at Skipton Girl's High School and considering a career as a product designer. We think that would be a good choice for her, as she has excellent sketching skills combined with innovative thinking. We wish her well in the future and hope she remembers us when she is rich and famous!

Kris, Ian, Malcolm & Neil

Here are her thoughts on her time with us;

For my work placement, I spent two weeks at Chelker Technology, which was an interesting and enjoyable experience. As well as getting a greater knowledge of the way things are run generally in the working environment, I found out lots of information about engineering and industrial design.

Whilst on placement, I learnt how various engineering mechanisms work, and about the importance of precise planning and safety regulations in this area of work. I have seen how much thought and discussion there is behind engineering, and think that I may consider a career in either engineering or product design in the future.

Thanks to everyone at Chelker for making this experience possible.

Emily

ABC website goes live!

Chelker Technology customer Auto Bin Cleaning (ABC) has gone live with their new website. The company sells and franchises the equipment a business needs to clean wheelie bins. This is a phenominal growth business which has been poorly served by equipment suppliers in the past.



Tired of vans with appalling ergonomics and low reliability, ABC Directors Laurence and Janice Stephenson approached Chelker to design and build a series of solutions to the need for efficient mobile cleaning. Chelker took the same approach to the problem as it would to any project. We looked at the true needs and designed a cost effective method of improving operational efficiency.


Productivity is what it's all about, whatever the manufacturing or service process. However, in designing a new series of systems we have also incorporated features which improve the health and safety of the operator, reduce environmental impact, and gives a better end result i.e. a cleaner bin.



The pictures show System A which is the first entry level solution for domestic bin cleaning. Chelker designed and built the system, converting a Transit SWB vehicle.

To Purchase, or to discuss a Happy Bins franchise, contact www.autobincleaning.co.uk

Create 3D Photographs

Chelker are proud to be associated with Create3D, a technology company who have developed a system for 3D photography which uses a normal digital camera. Chelker have designed and manufactured the first batch of PhotoScanner units which are the platform for the camera.

The PhotoScanner works by moving the camera along a linear track under computer control, programmed from a handheld computer via a Bluetooth link. The camera trigger is fired electronically during a scan run, ensuring that images are captured at the right point, with a linear resolution of 0.1mm.

Once the images are captured they are uploaded to Create3D, who print them using a special process which results in a 3D photograph. Unfortunately, the World Wide Web is not capable of displaying the images as it is in boring old 2D, but the results are amazingly Harry Potteresque i.e. appear to be magic. No special glasses are required, the result is 3D like a hologram, and the technique can be used for portraits, landscapes, still life, advertising, in fact anything you might like to take pictures of.

From an engineering viewpoint, the project was very interesting, incorporating extrusions, PLC programming, microprocessor boards, Bluetooth serial comms, and stepper motor drive systems. The end result is a smoothly sexy strokable piece of high tech photographic kit.

Create3D are looking for professional photographers as partners to make the technology available throughout the UK and worldwide. www.create-3d.co.uk

Chris Kempster

Chris is a pupil of South Craven School and we were very happy to have him for a week of work experience. Chris is interested in Engineering as a career and we think he would be well suited to it. Here is his own report on his experience;

"I enjoyed my stay at Chelker Technology, experiencing what it is like in the world of work. I have found that designing engineering is very hard, I’ve been designing hinges which I found a challenge whereas Chelker are designing stuff that is a lot more complex. I have learnt that designing in engineering is just as important as the manufacturing because if it's not planned out correctly, chances are it won't function properly further on processing and I have also learnt that lengths (dimensions) need to be very precise. I think that from doing my work experience here that I have decided that engineering isn’t a bad job and could well take it up in the future."

South Craven School is a local Technology and Engineering College

http://www.south-craven.n-yorks.sch.uk/

Google Street View

The brand new Google Street View now allows us to check up on our Metroscape products in several UK cities !

Take a look at this outside the iconic Liver Building in Liverpool;
http://snipurl.com/ee0sq