Partnership Expands Engineering Curriculum
WishBone’s EpiFIXTM Growth Control Plating System (photo courtesy of Wishbone Medical Inc.)
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowWarsaw-based WishBone Medical Inc., Red Star Contract Manufacturing in Larwill and the Whitko Career Academy have formed a partnership that will bring additional opportunities for hands-on experience to students as part of the academy’s engineering curriculum. The partners say students will be manufacturing components for one of WishBone’s pediatric medical devices.
The components are part of the company’s EpiFIX Growth Control Plating System, which is designed to gradually correct angular deformities in upper and lower extremities in children. The WCA says the components are templates that will help surgeons to determine the appropriate plate size for their pediatric patients before surgery.
The partnership marks the start of a series of future collaborations between Red Star and the academy.
“This type of collaboration with local business partners will allow the students of the Whitko Career Academy opportunities for real-world experiences that they may not have exposure to at most other educational facilities,” said Joe Luce, director of Whitko Career Academy. “Receiving the PO will not only educate the WCA engineering and precision machine students on processes necessary to fulfill such an order—it will also allow the business and marketing students real-world training in processing a PO and putting to work the skills they are learning. The ability to educate so many students at zero financial risk to the school corporation is something we have dreamed about early on, as we planned and envisioned what the WCA experience would look like.”
The WCA says the templates project enables students to learn professional skills related to precision machining, fabrication, engineering and business. Regardless of whether students choose to attend college, they will get early experience that is intended to help them obtain high-paying, skilled positions within the manufacturing industry.
The partners says the devices will be processed at the career academy and finished at Red Star Contract Manufacturing.