South Texas College introduces artificial intelligence in manufacturing course

South Texas College is set to offer artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing course as part of the Advanced Manufacturing program next spring. (Courtesy: STC)

The South Texas College Advanced Manufacturing Technology program (AMT) is set to launch a course in artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing, equipping students with skills for the future of AI in the workforce.

The STC course is made possible through a partnership with Intel by providing resources and hardware for the curriculum, which starts next spring.

AMT Program Chair Erika Guerra said the AI course is the first at STC.

The process behind the course took close to two years.

“Since there’s no code for this specific class because it’s a whole new class that’s coming in and it’s not in the database or inventory, we had to come up with the codes,” Guerra said.

The program’s efforts earned it an invitation to a national summit in the nation’s Capitol by the American Association of Community Colleges Artificial Intelligence Incubator Network, which is focused on integrating AI into manufacturing programs.

STC was among the five community colleges from across the nation to discuss approaches to AI programming and shared practices.

“We were invited to go to Washington, D.C this October and that’s when I realized we’re really leading the way here,” Guerra said. “And it’s not just in our region, in our state, but, you know, nationally. We’re one of the few that have these specific artificial intelligence classes and workforce to help the community.”

Guerra said she received hundreds of hours of training through Intel’s Artificial Intelligence for Workforce program to bring the AI course.

The course has three main topics which are predictive maintenance, quality control and computer vision.

“Students that are going through the course are going to come out with these skills that they’re going to be able to help local manufacturers,” she said. “It’s really targeting more of the small to medium manufacturing companies … students are able to repair, install, troubleshoot machinery and with this AI manufacturing class, they’re now going to be able to collect data on a machine with different sensors, model that data and then be able to do data analysis so that we can do something, for example, like predictive maintenance … so we can get to the point that we know before (a machine) fails.”

Students also learn about ethics in AI, programming and coding.

Hector Cuevas, a student in the STC’s Robotics and Mechatronics program, is enrolled in the AI course next spring.

“AI is, like, just newly emerging and a lot of industries are starting to use it,” Cuevas said. “So, I feel that there’s going to be a lot of opportunities in the future for people with these kinds of skills.”

The Donna resident said he wants to go into technology maintenance and the AI course would help him garner skills to use AI in his future career.

“(The students) are excited about what they’re going to learn so that they can put it to use,” Guerra said. “On our end, we’re excited to be teaching this for the first time on the academic side. On the technical side, our certificate and associate degrees, our students that are coming through these courses, they know they’re going out into industry. They want to go out and work.”

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