Did you know that Acu-Rite Solutions DROs are used daily within Southern Illinois University’s (SIU) College of Engineering in Carbondale, IL? Found in the SIU Teaching Machine Shop as well as the general college machine shop, these Acu-Rite Solutions DROs are helping students prepare manufacturing and design projects and ready them for in-field work. And to support those ongoing efforts, last year Acu-Rite Solutions of the HEIDENHAIN Group donated two new DRO 200S and supporting scales to SIU, as well as supporting brackets and parts to repair some existing equipment. The 2019 equipment donation was in appreciation of the many years that SIU has partnered with Acu-Rite Solutions, as well as part of a corporate effort to support schools in manufacturing. Acu-Rite Solutions also offers a deep discount program available to all schools. “All the digital readouts here are Acu-Rite Solutions because they are well-known and a staple in this industry,” explained Nick Sjoberg, SIU graduate assistant completing his masters in Workforce Education. “Besides schooling, I have interned and worked at a variety of jobs in manufacturing and the Acu-Rite Solutions DROs are the industry mainstay.” The two new DROs have been put on a lathe in the SIU Teaching Machine Shop to support student courses such as IMAE 209 (Industrial Management & Applied Engineering) and on a Bridgeport knee mill in the college-wide general machine shop where engineering design teams use it daily. “The new Acu-Rite Solutions DRO on the mill in our general shop was put on one of our least-used pieces of equipment, which has now turned it into one of our most used!” said Sjoberg. “We are very thankful to have this.” Sjoberg added that the Teaching Shop with the new Acu-Rite Solutions DRO on a lathe consists of many pieces of equipment from other manual lathes, large knee mills, CNC lathes and a CNC plasma table to smaller drill presses and welding equipment to name a few. The students using the Teaching Shop and attending the IMAE course and similar are tasked with taking drawings [...]