UAF, CONTINUED from PAGE 11
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The simulator, which offers training on multiple types of equip- ment, caught Brokaw’s attention during her tour in September with other UAF students. “The instructor can control what the environment looks like — if there are other vehicles around to interact with and if there’s an equipment failure,” she said. “The chair even moves.” Joren Bowling, another mining engineering student who holds the title of UAF student mine manag- er, first visited the Delta center in 2020. The experience helped draw him into the mining engineering pro- gram. He had started at UAF in mechanical engineering. His room - mate, a geology student, took a mine safety class that involved a trip to the center. “He was just taking it for fun,” Bowling said. “He was raving to me about it.” Bowling took the class and got hooked himself. “We both signed up for mining,” Bowling said. He’s looking forward to return - ing to Delta as part of his academic program during the next few years. “Our surveying class has at least one whole week dedicated to under- ground surveying,” he said. As a venue for such work, the basement of UAF’s Duckering Build- ing is no match for an underground mine — even if it “certainly is as confusing as one,” he joked. *** Bieber, Ghosh and others are still working on how to incorporate such classwork into the training center’s schedule. “It’s kind of a collaborative part- nership,” Bieber said. “If we need certain things, like surveying, for example, something like that, it’s all part of working together.” Ghosh envisions the center as a way for UAF engineering students, for starters, to obtain their safety certifications, which are required for anyone working in a mine. “But we need the mine for a host of other issues as well — surveys, blasting, ventilation, rock mechan-
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The Alaska Miner
Winter 2022
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