Morning Briefing | Dayton approves Medal of Honor memorial project in Wright Dunbar area

The city of Dayton has approved a Medal of Honor memorial project to be located in the Wright-Dunbar area.

In today’s Morning Briefing, we give you more details about the project and when a groundbreaking for the Honor Park is anticipated. We also take you inside the Air Force Research Laboratory’s CAMS lab.

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The newsletter should take about 4 minutes, 19 seconds to read.

Medal of Honor memorial will be erected in West Dayton

A nonprofit organization plans to break ground next month on a new memorial in West Dayton that will honor 41 Medal of Honor recipients from the greater Dayton region.

• What is the Medal of Honor? It is the highest award for military valor in combat.

• By the numbers: More than 330 Ohioans have been awarded the Medal of Honor, and local leaders say this includes about 41 people from the greater Dayton region.

• Funds raised: Wright Dubar Inc. has raised more than $1.3 million of the $1.5 million needed to construct the memorial.

• Where will it be located? It will be placed in a city park at the northeast corner of West Third Street and Edwin C. Moses Boulevard, right by the bridge and river.

• What they are saying: “This project will elevate the memorial of veterans in this community but also the veterans who still live here,” said Karla Garrett Harshaw, a member of Wright Dunbar Inc.’s board of directors.

• Timeline: The Honor Park groundbreaking is planned for Nov. 7. The anticipated completion date is the summer of 2025.

• To donate: You can donate online to the Medal of Honor Campaign Fund #2231 here.

How a lab at AFRL is using robots to solve manufacturing problems

The Air Force Research Laboratory’s Collaborative Automation for Manufacturing Systems (“CAMS”) lab on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base’s Area B is where a small cadre of engineers and researchers pursue digital solutions to manufacturing problems.

• The CAMS lab: The room itself is relatively small ― maybe 450 square feet. It’s the AFRL Digital Manufacturing Research Team’s first internal laboratory.

• Problems they tackle: How can the Air Force better equip operators and technicians? How can the service more quickly produce tools and weapons airmen and maintainers need on the battlefield? Where can working prototypes leap from the laptop to the runway?

• Unique tools: Part of what sets this lab apart are the tools. Autonomous manufacturing, including “collaborative robotics” and “extended reality” hardware and headsets can be used to approach problems from new angles.

• Blacksmithing with a difference: Researchers are examining the potential of “open-die” forging, a process that uses hammers and dies to manipulate metal into shape, not all that different from traditional blacksmithing, but done by a robot.

• Robot dog: The team has a Boston Dynamics robot, that resembles a dog, named “Astro.” It walks on on four padded feet and can opens a lab door with robotic jaws, using one of its legs to keep the door open as its walks on its remaining three legs into the lab.

• What they are saying: “This lab is sort of our on-site research lab for all of the work that we do,” said Sean Donegan, AFRL’s digital manufacturing research team lead.

What to know today

• Tip of the day: Find out the reasons to have your mobile device’s checked.

• Big move of the day: Dayton’s oldest marketing and advertising agency, The Ohlmann Group, has completed its first move in more than 50 years.

• Person to know today: Philip Drennen. The graduate of Kettering Fairmont High School co-wrote the music and lyrics of the new off-Broadway musical “The Big Gay Jamboree.”

• Quote of the day: “It feels embracing. We tell our stories. A lot of our work can be seen as abstract, but they are the stories we tell. You may not like everything on our program but there will be something you like on our program, which is the magic of being a repertory company. We get to dance many stories by many people, and we tell them from the Black experience.” - Debbie Blunden-Diggs, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company’s chief executive and artistic director on the upcoming season.

• Election 2024: Residents of Precinct 34 in Beavercreek will vote on whether to make their precinct a “dry” precinct for purposes of carryout alcohol sales, in an attempt to dissuade development of a proposed RaceTrac gas station or truck stop in the city.

• Stat of the day: With two weeks left in the high school football regular season, no one has reached 1,000 yards receiving yet. Find out who has come the closest.

• Dayton history: When the world came to shoot in Dayton: History of the Grand American trapshooting championships.

• Things to do: Featuring hundreds of pumpkins carved by the Dayton community, the popular Stoddard Avenue Pumpkin Glow will be celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. This free event runs from 6-10 p.m. Oct. 28-29.

• Photo of the day: The New Carlisle Farmers Market recently held a Halloween themed night. Check out all the photos from photographer Marshall Gorby.