Long Island Business News Follow Ups: July 20, 2007

Long Island Business News, Jul 20, 2007

Mega gains for mechatronics

The "mechatronics" program at Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood is expanding rapidly.

As reported by LIBN in May, the $2.4 million, federally funded program partners with companies to educate a workforce that has been displaced in the manufacturing industry of Long Island. Workers are taught mechatronics - a blend of mechanical and electrical engineering paired with information technology.

Since May, 40 new workers have joined the original 110; for the first time, eight high school students are enrolled. In addition, John Lombardo, director of the SCCC program, announced that $300,000 worth of high-tech, automated equipment for student operation and training will go online in September.

Yes, New York, there is a squirrel circus

Jeff Miller's career as an "American Inventor" has been interrupted by a special news bulletin.

Miller, LIBN columnist and longtime Long Island essayist, was set to debut his homemade backyard contraption, the Squirrel Circus, on the ABC network reality show "American Inventor 2" (think "American Idol" for wannabe Thomas Edisons). The mad columnist detailed his audition and the device - which "Turns Pests Into Performers!" according to squirrelcircus.com - in LIBN's June 8 issue, and had taped a segment slated to run during the show's July 11 episode.

Sadly for Miller and the rest of society, a special news report about a NYC cop shooting preempted the segment on WABC-TV, ABC's New York affiliate (the rest of the country did see the squirrel circus in action). But neither Miller nor AI2's legion of New York fans should despair: The segment can be seen in its entirety on abc.com.