I’m Calum Knott, the WorldSkills UK Training Manager, training young people for the WorldSkills Competitions known as the ‘skills Olympics', and a Senior Applications Engineer and Trainer at (Didactic Services , a Festo Didactic Official Partner)

In this Technical Masterclass we will look at writing a PLC program for a sorting device, with an IEC 61131 compatible Programable Logic Controller - We will be using a Siemens PLC

This skill relates to section 4, Using industrial controllers & Section 5, Software programming from the WSOS for Mechatronics

What is the WSOS?

The WSOS (formally WSSS) is a global standard, that reflects the global occupations or work roles that are represented by the WorldSkills Competition

Amongst other things, they cover the specialist, technical and generic skills required for each competition

The WSOS for Mechatronics, is included in the resource pack, but is also available here

Throughout this masterclass, we will highlight which section of the WSOS you are working on, with the following image: 

What is the goal of this masterclass?

The Sorting machine pictured behind me in the video, is able to sort red, black, or silver (metallic) parts, into three different chutes. It does this, by using a series of sensors (inputs) and actuators (outputs)

Both the simulation, and the Festo MPS Sorting station, are designed to work in the same way, so you should be able to follow the course, with either the physical equipment at your school/college, or virtually, on your laptop

By programming a PLC, using Siemens TIA portal V16, we will be able to achieve the results seen above.