Cobots prepare students for high-demand jobs

Ease of use is a big reason why Dallas College chose UR cobots. “The learning curve is minimal,” says Brian Turner, a mechatronics instructor at the college. “The interface is intuitive, which helps students grasp the basics of robot programming quickly.”

Aaron Paul, regional vice president of Advanced Technologies Consultants (ATC), provided the UR cobots at Dallas College.  “Before we started working with UR, we sold a few industrial robots here and there, but we’ve now deployed UR cobots in hundreds of schools,” he says, adding that being easy to use is not the only success factor. "UR is the number one cobot in the industry, so they’re not just learning on a teaching robot. They're learning on the robot they're most likely to see in industry.”

Another benefit of cobots in the classroom is the quick adoption by faculty.  The Dallas College dean explains how instructors are less intimidated by the robots due to their ease of use: “Instructors feel more confident in letting students work with the robots because they won’t be left answering questions they can’t answer,” he says.

The collaborative nature of Universal Robots means they can work alongside students without the need for protective barriers. "The robots stop if they encounter any resistance, so there’s no need for the rigid safety measures required by traditional robots. This makes them more accessible and safe to use in a classroom setting," says Howard and explains: “If students bump into the robot, it stops, and the robot won’t continue until students are ready to re-enable it."

Despite its ease of use, Universal Robots offers advanced capabilities that allow students to tackle complex industry tasks. “The robots are simple to learn, but that doesn’t mean they’re simplistic,” explains Paul. “Students are actually able to do more complex things that you would see in industry – tasks that can be more challenging on other systems. It’s also easy to connect the UR robots to external devices because of the input and outputs.”

Support just a call away

It’s critical that students always have access to all the UR robots at Dallas College. Professor Howard emphasizes how technical support through ATC and UR has been outstanding: “Whenever we have issues, they're right there. It's just a phone call away. Not in a call center or anything like that. They ask the right questions and they get us going again,” he says, recalling an issue with a teach pendant. “We let them know and the next day, we had a new teach pendant, overnight. That's very unusual in the industry.”