Chapter 27： 1st class at MIT

On Monday, September 5, 1977, after Bao Zixuan settled in at MIT, it was time for his first class. It takes two years to complete three and a half years of courses, and college students like them who have mostly communicated with other colleges and universities are not under a lot of academic pressure.

There are only 22 students in their class, and 14 of them are from other famous schools in the world. Some are civil engineering, some are computer, and some are bioengineering. After all, when they first entered the university two years ago, they chose If you have a double degree, you must be responsible for your choice. As a result, the teacher has to teach a book in two classes, and then practice and exams.

Their first class was relatively simple, the history of mechanical development and future directions. This is a very simple course, but also a process of human production and use of machines. In this class, a professor who is about 50 years old is giving a class to these talented people, Kevin Bowman, a professor of German descent. Moreover, he came from a family of mechanics. His grandfather was the chief engineer of Rheinmetall in Germany, and his family moved to the United States because of the war.

Kevin-Bauman: "In this class, let's talk about your views on the future development of machinery, including how we can help companies build factories and what kind of factories to build. As for the machines invented in ancient times, you take it as a foundation. Take a look, the textbooks at MIT are lessons taught by history teachers. Whoever will share with you the interrelationships between machines and factories in the future, and the role that MIT plays in it.”

At this time, the only girl in the class, one of them stood up and said: "Professor Bowman, hello, my name is Jane Jones. I think the production efficiency of the machines in the future will be higher; the production precision will be higher; some people Unions are gradually being replaced by machines.” A point that anyone with a little reading can express in the 21st century, but not many people in this era can.

Another girl then stood up and said, "I would also add that the proportion of CNC machines will be higher and higher. Our manual operations will be less and less, and the production in the factory will be produced after the customer places an order."

Everyone is constantly expressing their opinions, and at this time, one person's speech makes Bao Zixuan feel bright. I think we should integrate a lot of machinery now, so that people who need it can use all the machinery they need with less money. Buy all of them, and the parts are best used on a large scale, and find a standard interface, so that products produced by different factories can be used interchangeably. To achieve rapid replacement of parts, and the standard number of motor revolutions should be geared according to the different needs of each industry to achieve the required standard number of revolutions, multi-pole division.

At this time, Professor Bowman nodded thoughtfully and asked, "What's your name."

"My name is Louis Wallace," said the boy who had just returned to the question.

Bowman: "Okay, Louis, what you said makes sense. I hope you will work hard in this direction."

After everyone kept expressing their opinions, it was Bao Zixuan's turn finally.

Bao Zixuan: "Hello everyone, my name is Bao Zixuan, I just heard what all the students said is very reasonable, but I think the improvement of mechanical manufacturing is a systematic project, which requires the overall quality of our staff, precision machining capabilities and people's understanding of Product usage requirements are checked and determined. I think we should expand machinery manufacturing into the industrial system.”

"I was thinking about a question this holiday, that is, how do we divide the big industry. I initially divided the industry into four eras. That is, Industry 1.0, Industry 2.0, Industry 3.0 and Industry 4.0."

"The so-called Industry 1.0 is the era of steam; Industry 2.0 is the era of electrification; Industry 3.0 is the era of information technology; it is also the era we are experiencing, and Industry 4.0 is the use of information technology to promote industrial changes. I define it as the era of intelligence ."

"What we are now experiencing is the stage of Industry 3.0, the era of electronic information, that is, the widespread application of electronic and information technology to further improve the degree of automation and control of the manufacturing process. Convert the information we receive into products produced by the factory."

"Industry 4.0 should be the integration of the physical physical world and the virtual world calculated by the computer, the full life cycle of the product, the digitization of the entire manufacturing process, and the integration of modules based on communication technology to form a highly flexible, personalized and digital product. A new mode of production and service.”

"In Industry 4.0, we should pay attention to the construction of smart factories, the level of artificial intelligence in smart production, and the overall supporting facilities for smart logistics. At present, I am still trying to build smart factories. In my computer, 16 can already be realized. Factory construction of uncomplicated parts and all data connections and integrated production, if there are too many, my computer computing power will not meet the requirements.”

At this time, everyone looked at Bao Zixuan like a monster. The proposal of Industry 4.0 was 40 years ahead of schedule, but he just wanted to prove himself at MIT, and the MIT laboratory was sure before the Germans proposed it. There will be experiments in this area, but the cost factor has not been realized.

At this time, the world can only be in the MIT mechanical manufacturing class. Those who put forward such a theory will not be considered crazy. Through this remark, they still conquered the students of MIT, and of course Kevin was conquered. - Professor Bowman.

At this time, Professor Kevin Bowman was the first to react and applauded first, and everyone followed suit. In fact, Bao Zixuan wanted this effect, and only in this way his research results would not be so abrupt.

Professor Bowman: "Bao, your point of view is very novel, and I think it is very promising. You have really achieved a virtual factory that can build 16 parts."

In fact, when they were at Rolls-Royce, they were able to simulate the whole process of producing and assembling tens of thousands of parts on the computer, and Bao Zixuan participated in the core part of the plan, so the simplified version of the software had already been written.

Bao Zixuan: "Yes, professor. I can simulate it for you in the next class."

Professor Bowman: "Very good, you can turn your ideas into a paper. I am a member of the review committee of a scientific journal. I can recommend your paper to a scientific journal."

Bao Zixuan didn't expect that the words, just for everyone to remember, would have such an effect. And as a science and engineering man, there is no one who does not know scientific journals. It seems that this is also a way to increase his influence!

Bao Zixuan: "Okay Professor; I will give you the thesis tomorrow. In fact, I have already finished writing it during the holiday, but it is not refined and simplified."

Professor Bowman: "Great, I look forward to your paper. Come here today! get out of class is over!"

At this time, everyone started to walk outside the classroom. At this time, Professor Kevin Bowman asked Bao Zixuan to wait for him. Everyone here is envious. But everyone thinks it should, and Bao Zixuan's performance today deserves the professor's individual attention.

Professor Bowman: "Bao, you are a young man with great ideas. I hope you will be my teaching assistant and my laboratory assistant."

Bao Zixuan: "Professor, aren't all teaching assistants only master's students! And the assistants in Bowman's lab are all doctoral students. I'm afraid my qualifications are not enough."

Professor Bowman: "There are not so many rules and regulations at MIT. As long as you have the strength and ideas, nothing will be a problem. The main task of my laboratory this year is to study the multi-functionality of CNC machine tools. Originally, I thought Looking for people from the computer department to join, but hearing your ideas and the computer strength you said can already build a virtual factory, I think you are the best choice."

Bao Zixuan: "I have a question, how to count the patents generated during the research and development period. I'm not afraid of your joke. My family has a factory in Xiangjiang, but the technology is not very advanced. I need to use what I have learned to complete the upgrade of technology and industry."

Professor Bowman: "These are not problems. At MIT, no one dares to own your research results. The patent is yours, and it is yours. However, when you use the school's resources, you need to pay service and usage fees."

After the constant communication between the two, Bao Zixuan did not agree to be a teaching assistant, but agreed to join Bowman's laboratory.

​