Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/407095
EquipmentWorld.com | November 2014 11 reporter | by Equipment World staff L ong out of space at its cramped 7,000-square- foot headquarters, the Historical Construction Equipment Association has launched a new campaign to fund the 20,000-square-foot National Construction Equipment Museum. The goal: to have a grand opening of the $1.5 million building in Sep- tember, 2016, during the group's annual convention. HCEA's present building at their headquarters in Bowling Green, Ohio, would be converted to a storage facility, and a new building will take center stage as the museum, says Thomas Berry, HCEA archivist. The museum will include: s ! MACHINERY HALL WITH A CLEAR SPAN VAULTED CEILING to allow cranes and shovels to be displayed with booms raised. s ! VISITORS CENTER INCLUDING A MERCHANDISE STORE and an area for meetings and special displays. s ! SQUAREFOOT EDUCATION CENTER WITH INTERAC tive displays. s ! SQUAREFOOT ARCHIVES ANNEX WITH CLIMATE controlled storage for seldom-accessed material. HCEA calculates if each of the 4,000 members donates $375, funding for the building is assured. "There are national museums for cars, trains and trucks, but not for the equipment that built this na- tion," says HCEA National Director Don Frantz. "It's time." HCEA advances national construction museum plan C lasses have begun at JLG Industries' new $2.5 million customer training center and proving grounds in McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania. Quadrupling the size of the company's original train- ING FACILITY THE EXPANSION INCLUDES A ACRE PROVING grounds course for operating lift and access equip- ment such as telehandlers, scissors and boom lifts. Rick Smith, senior director of product training, has developed a program that incorporates class- room training and online courses, including a virtual simulator that recreates the training course to scale. The facility will also offer a unique "train-the-trainer" program that Smith says is an "industry changer." The 17,000-square-foot facility includes 7,000 square feet of classroom, dining and offi ce space, and 10,000 square feet of service bays with 30-foot ceilings to accommodate large lifts. – Amy Materson Briefs JLG opens training center and proving grounds – Marcia Gruver Doyle Bob the Builder gets a makeover After educating children around the world for the last 16 years, the popular cartoon Bob the Builder has gotten its fi rst refresh in the form of an all-new Bob and updated construction equipment sidekicks. Though still a computer- animated cartoon, the new Bob looks much more like a real guy than the old one, which more closely resembled a toy. Beyond Mattel feeling it had become a bit stale, a main factor behind the change is likely that the more realistic look of the new show simply wasn't feasible by computer animation technol- ogy 16 years ago. Daqri launches augmented reality hard hat Daqri's Smart Helmet, a hard hat equipped with Google Glass-like augmented reality features, uses a combination of sensors and 360-degree cameras to get a sense of a worker's surroundings before displaying pertinent informa- tion based on the environment. The Smart Helmet uses a technology called Intellitrack capable of recognizing objects and environ- ments and reconstructing a facility based on plans. The Smart Helmet can scan tools for daily inventories, record in HD video, take high-resolution photos and create 3D maps.