ALPHACAM donated free licences to the nine competitors in Euroskills 2012’s wood machining technician event, while Proteus set the CNC part of the competition and drew up training modules for it.
Proteus Sales Manager Henk van Heuveln says: “Euroskills is extremely important for the future of craftsmanship and trades throughout Europe.” Over 450 youngsters were involved in more than 40-skills-based events including CNC machining, hair dressing, plumbing, cooking, website design, electrical installation, landscape gardening, bricklaying and roadbuilding.
The competitors in the wood event had to create a cabinet, which included working with ALPHACAM and a CNC router to produce an insert panel containing the word ‘Euroskills’ and the shape of the Spa Francorchamps F1 circuit in Belgium, where Euroskills was held.
The ALPHACAM training provided by Proteus ahead of the competition consisted of four modules, Drawing, Editing, Art and a final tutorial and exercise comprising all three aspects. It included modelling, geometries, editing, panel definition, rough finishing, pocketing and simulation.
Henk van Heuveln says Proteus were surprised how well the youngsters worked with ALPHACAM and how much knowledge they had of it during the competition. “Maybe this is because it is so easy to learn how to use the software effectively. Their initial knowledge of ALPHACAM varied considerably; for one competitor it was part of his schooling, but another hadn’t used it at all.”
“We’re glad to say the results of the competition were very good, with above average marks.”
As part of its sponsorship of the wood event, ALPHACAM donated licences to the competitors – who came from Hungary, The Netherlands, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Slovenia, Spain, Latvia and Portugal – so they could practise programming and machining, and then continue using the market-leading software after Euroskills.
“There were many extremely favourable comments about ALPHACAM during the competition,” says Henk van Heuveln. “The Woodcrafting Technology event was particularly attractive to watch – it was very lively and dynamic, and drew a lot of attention from visitors.”
