While Chicago’s Cubs and White Sox tune up for the 2024 baseball season in warmer climes, Renaissance System Road Warriors invade the Windy City for a five-day stand at the Additive Manufacturing Users Group Conference in March. The AMUG affair is the early big-league additive manufacturing get-together in the heart of America in 2024.
Taking place at the historic Hilton Chicago Hotel, the AMUG event will run from March 10 thru March 14, 2014. The trade show features additive manufacturers with scouts and agents from government, military, aviation, and other industries. All of them will be looking to bolster their own teams, and to do business with other outfits. Team Renaissance – Rick Pressley and Don Deptowicz — will be exhibiting RSI’s innovations at the conference. The exhibits run from March 10 thru March 12, the first three days of the conference.
There will be presentations, workshops, demonstrations, seminars, meetings, and other get-togethers for the length of the conference, running thru March 14.
Pressley will be making one of these presentations. His presentation “RSI Ceramic AM for Low Cost Turbine Castings,” takes place in the Waldorf room on the third floor of the Hilton from 1330 to 1430, March 13. Those going to AMUG should make it a point to take in Pressley’s insightful and down-to-earth session.
Rick and Don will be available thru the conference to answer questions and provide solutions for those needing quality castings and finished parts.
A jet engine mechanic from the 148th Fighter Wing, Minnesota Air National Guard, works on a F-16 jet engine in 2020, Duluth, Minn. Renaissance Services has provided legacy parts to keep these venerable warbirds flying effectively. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Audra Flanagan)
AMUG has had a conference of some sort each year since 1988, except for 2020. The trade show in recent years has attracted close to 2000 paid visitors each year.
The AMUG convention is not open to the public. Typically, attendees must own commercially-available additive manufacturing machinery. AMUG leaders say this is because they want the conference to provide attendees with in-depth education and training sessions by AM industry experts and OEM representatives. There is a full slate of such sessions through the entire course of the conference. AMUG people say they want attendees to come away from the event with better knowledge of additive manufacturing and at least some ideas that will be of practical help to them. To that extent, they say, they have chosen to stage the conference at the Hilton Chicago, and expect conference goers to have the run of the great facility for that week.
Another Chicago trade show of note – the Chicago World’s Fair – took place nearby in 1933. Soldier Field is in the right center of the picture. The Hilton Chicago, opened a few years earlier, would be just off the right side of this picture of the fair’s layout on Chicago’s Lake Michigan waterfront. Painting by Harry McEwen Pettit.
Conference organizers say government, military, and defense people make up about an eighth of attendees. Aerospace firms provide a large segment of the show-goers. The confab also draws in people from medical and dental industry manufacturers, automotive companies, “service providers,” consumer products makers, and those who did not list an industry affiliation, AMUG people say. They also note there are some attendees who come from universities and other learning institutes.
The Hilton Chicago has been one of the best-known venues for gatherings of the prominent in the nation for many years. Presidents stay at the Hilton when they come to the City of Big Shoulders. The massive facility overlooks Grant Park along the downtown Chicago waterfront. It is within walking distance of the Field Museum, the Adler Planetarium, and Soldier Field.
AMUG organizers stress their trade show is not just an empty display of wares. The large number of workshops, presentations, demonstrations, and other learning and idea exchanges, they hope, will help participants drive additive manufacturing forward.
While the Cubs and Pale Hose are tuning up for the season, and the Bears’ execs are prepping for the NFL draft nearby, Team Renaissance will be competing too. Renaissance Services has an entry in the Conference’s Technical Competition.
Renaissance Services is entering the 10” Integrally Bladed Rotor (IBR/Blisk). RSI produced it using a 3D-printed ceramic mold and 3D-printed injection dies. This project won the award for most innovative casting in the Defense category at the Investment Casting Institute (ICI) Conference in Pittsburgh in 2023. This casting was part of the Renaissance ALLTEC Phase II SBIR program, which was produced with the Bescast foundry in Cleveland, Ohio.
Right: Winner at the Fair. Renaissance Services’ Rotor wins at the ICI Conference, 2023.
Renaissance Services hopes to win again. But regardless of outcome, such competitions mean great ideas can come to market. Everyone’s favorite team – the United States — wins in the long run.
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For further info about any of Renaissance Services’ products and services, please contact Rick Pressley at (937) 586-7277 or email RSI at [email protected]. Visit the Renaissance Services webpage www.ren-services.com at your convenience.
2024 AMUG CONFERENCE
EDUCATION & TRAINING CONFERENCE
March 10-14, 2024
Hilton Chicago, 720 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
Show Link: https://www.amug.com/attendee-registration/
Booth Number 66
Booth Number 66 is in the upper right quadrant. A red square points it out.
