SAMPE Review
Dateline: 05/31/99This year's SAMPE Symposium is over now, and it was bigger than it has been in quite a while. I spent two days on the exhibit floor, and I was barely able to see everything I wanted to. Next year, I'll definitely have to plan on three days.
The number of exhibitors has been increasing over the last several years, and the increase spans all types of companies. This year I especially noticed several companies which were exhibiting for the first time.
I'll cover those below, but first a few words on the facilities.
Logistics
SAMPE moved the location this year to the Long Beach Convention Center. The facility was very nice, and seemed to provide more space than the Anaheim Convention Center. Next year's symposium will also be held in Long Beach.
In addition to the larger facilities, the Center is also within walking distance to several good restaraunts. The Hyatt is the only hotel adjoining the Center, but several others are nearby, with a free shuttle provided by the city.
If you make your reservations early enough, I highly recommend staying at the Queen Mary. If you're not familiar with it, it's an old cruise ship (once the largest in the world) which has been refitted as a hotel. You stay in what used to be the first class cabins. Most of the cabin fixtures are originals, though the beds have been upgraded to twins. If you have a couple extra hours, you can take a self-guided walking tour of the ship.
Also, you should definitely get your SAMPE registration in before you arrive at the conference. We arrived around noon on Monday, about the time the exhibits were opening. We had to wait in line about 15 minutes. By the time we were through, though, the line was about three times as long.
Hands-On Exhibits
The manufacturing demo this year was a pool cue. I didn't have time to make one this year, so I hope they will be making them again next year. The all-black cue with a black foam grip was very cool looking. Much more useful (to me, at least), than a putter. I'll definitely have to plan on three days, or at least a later return flight.
The other hands-on activity was the bridge building contest. Trials were being held in the Instron booth, but I always managed to walk by between tests. Maybe next year I'll submit an About.com entry.
Manufacturers
Both large and small manufacturing firms were represented. As usual, Hexcel and Alliant had their large displays. This year, though, there seemed to be more booths from small companies.
The very first booth I saw upon entering the hall was the one from Aurora Flight Sciences. This was their first year as an exhibitor. Aurora is still looking to hire some manufacturing engineers; see their posting on the Jobs Forum.
Other manufacturers I spoke to included Scaled Technology Works (their first year, I believe); Vermont Composites ; Texas Composite; and Fiberset. There were many others, of course.
It's always interesting to see the products the manufacturers have on display. This year, there was also a large product showcase at the back of the exhibit hall. Large products from different manufacturers were on display. The most impressive was a large (perhaps 40 foot long) wing section with stitch-bonded ribs and spars.
Material Suppliers
Pretty much every material supplier, from prepreggers to consumables to specialty materials, was represented. There were so many of them (and I wasn't really looking for materials this year), that none really stood out.
I did have the impression that there were many more consumable suppliers than usual. I picked up lots of literature on different release films, peel plies, and the like.
Once again, though, AirTech stole the show. Not only did they have an impressive booth, but their hospitality suite lived up to its reputation. This year, it was held at the Yard House, one of the restaraunts adjacent to the convention center. The party is getting so big, you never know who might show up.
Tool Chemical Corporation was displaying their epoxy tooling boards. We have a pallet of their high-temp board in storage, waiting for a good project to try it out on (the project we purchased it for was cancelled before we could use the material).
We also stopped by the Thiokol booth to get some hints on using their TCR towpreg. If you're having trouble with the tows breaking as they come off the spool, make sure you read the part of the data sheet that talks about required tension.
Finally, I was happy to see that FiberCote had a booth this year. I've used some of their prepregs in the past, and I've always been impressed with their quality.
Publishers
Many of the big publishers had booths this year. Ray Publishing (High Performance Composites and Composites Technology) had its usual display, and Aviation Maintenance made its debut at the convention this year.
Book publishers were represented by SAMPE (with their book store), Kluwer, and Technomic. I spent quite a bit of time at the Technomic booth. In addition to displaying many of their new books, they were demonstrating the CD-ROM version of MIL-HDBK-17 and two new programs for laminate analysis (CompositEase and V-Lab). I hope to be able to publish some reviews of these new products later this year.
Jobs
I've been hearing a lot about the difficulties companies are having in filling positions, so I was surprised at the lack of significant recruiting efforts.
SAMPE, of course, had its annual career fair, but turnout seemed to be quite low. When I stopped by on Tuesday, three employers were scheduled but only two had showed up. The jobs book, containing listings by companies not present, was smaller than usual. A few companies were recruiting at their booths, but it was a low key effort.
I made sure to tell all of the employers about my new Jobs Forum, so hopefully they'll start checking it. If you're looking for a job, be sure to post a "job wanted" message (you can even include a resume). If you're an employer, you can post job openings. (If you haven't registered for the new boards yet, you'll need to start at the old boards page.)
Publicity
This year, I decided to try advertising by placing a flyer on the literature table. My e-mail volume has been increasing the last several days, so it looks like the flyers are working. If you're writing me in response to the flyer, please let me know you saw it--that will help me know the expense was justified.
If you've written me in the last week or so with a link request, I apologize for the delays in getting the links online. In addition to my work backlog from travelling, I'm also still catching up on editing changes related to our name change to About.com.
And speaking of publicity, I still have three Owens Corning baseball caps to give away. See my last feature on Engineering Euphemisms for details.
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