CNC Class
SCHS students from the Construction 1 & Construction 2 classes (around 150 each year) are taught how to use the ShopBot CNC machine during the fall semester. There are 4 periods of Construction 1 class and 1 period of Construction 2 class, each with about 30 to 35 students.
The class curriculum is as follows. This is a one-semester project.
Day 1: ( 40 mins. ) ( for the whole class of 30-34 students ) x 5 periods
Power point presentation - Overview of CNC, CAD, CAM followed by a YouTube video by April Wilkerson showing her CNC machine shop. This gives them an overview of what they can do with CNC machines and how they could also start their own business doing CNC work.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/pn6vUag_mHo
Day 2: ( 95 mins. ) ( x 4 batches of 8 students each at the CAD workstations ) x 5 periods
Each student will be given a 20"x5.5" pine board on which they would create their work.
The students are taught how to use the VCarve Pro Computer Aided Design software to do their design and prep work for manufacturing.
Day 3: ( 95 mins. ) ( x 4 batches of 8 students each at the CAD workstations ) x 5 periods
The students create the actual design, the toolpaths and save all the design files into a USB drive.
Day 4: ( 40 mins. per student at the ShopBot machine + 5 mins. at the bandsaw and belt sander ) x 157 students
The design files are loaded onto the computer connected to a ShopBot Desktop Max CNC machine. They use the ShopBot 3 software to do the manufacturing on the CNC machine. Once the work on the CNC machine is done, they take the finished work to the bandsaw to remove the waste material and then to the belt sander to do the 'detab' and clean the edges of the board.
The students do all the work themselves from start to finish and learn the whole process of what it takes to do Computer Automation in Manufacturing.
~ Ray Hari