CNC Machines
 

How many teams out there have access CNC Machines (Computer Numerical Control) and have students that are able to run them?

Also who has the option of taking a PLTW class in there school?
(Project Lead The Way)
If so what classes do you have?

Re: CNC Machines
 

our team owns 2 milling machines the first one is a small scale CNC machine that our sponsor bought us about 4 years ago and the other one is a regular milling machine with no CNC they bought a few years ago they work out great for us we have a few students that are trained on the CNC and most are trained on the milling machine

Re: CNC Machines
 

We have several (both mills and lathes) at our disposal. Our team encompasses three schools now, and one of them is a technical/vocational school. The students from that school know how to use the CNC equipment.

Re: CNC Machines
 

Team 228 has access to a full CNC sheet metal shop through one of our sponsors; all parts that we have them make for our team are made by their employees. Since our 'partnership' was only finalized about a week before the 2007 Kickoff, we haven't yet had the time to fully teach all the new students about the new technology. (That's what the off-season's for. I know I personally have wanted to make all kinds of custom Vex components out of 0.040" aluminum on one of their CNC turret-punch machines. :))

Re: CNC Machines
 

Our team has three of our own CNC machines. Two HAAS Machines (1 VF-2 Mill and one SL-10 Lathe) and a FADAL EMC Mill. They are all run by students on our team and programmed by them as well. We do all our CAD/CAM in GibbsCAM and export with custom posts. Our machines are our babies and we treat them as such but anyone in the area is welcome to use our resources if we can share them.
-Guy

Re: CNC Machines
 

Our school has several mills and lathes, a bandsaw, and some other saws. Two of our sponsors are customer metal fabricators so we also have access to pretty much any metal machine under the sun (including the awesome heloarching we got done). But i'm talking about machines the size of classrooms here.

The funny thing is...it seems like nothing is getting done at our sponsors because all they do is think about the robot and do stuff for it...kinda like students in class.

Re: CNC Machines
 

I have a cnc mill in my basement. It's not big like the ones people have in school shops but it does the job for the robot and my other hobbies. As far as learning how to use it, self education.

Re: CNC Machines
 

When I was with RAGE team 173 we had a CNC 3axis bridgeport donate to the team and Mastercam software. The owner of CNC Software the maker of Mastercam has been working with he students teaching them the software and how to use the machine. I recentley join a new team Team 1373 and they have a CNC router, plasma cutter,small bridgeport and small router for sign making. They also have Mastercam and also Solidworks that the students they have learned.

Re: CNC Machines
 

Team 195 has full access to a metal shop with a 3Axis CNC. The funny thing is, the students of the robotics team are the only people who know how to operate it, as it's not currently used by the machine shop.
In Southington, there is a 16 student PLTW class, you apply in 8th grade and the school accepts the top 16 applicants to be members for the entire 4 year course. PLTW has helped alot, we just started using the CNC this year (Using it ALOT for that matter) and alot of the basic G-codes to get us started were taught junior year.

EDIT: The classes that our Project Lead the Way offers are as follows
Introduction to Engineering Design (Freshman) AP
Digital Electronics (Sophmore) AP
Computer Integrated Manufacturing (Junior) AP
Principals of Engineering (Junior) AP
Engineering Design and Development (Senior) Lvl4

Re: CNC Machines
 

Team 1675 has access to five cnc 4axis mills, five cnc Lathes, One 3axis Auto-tool changer(holds ten tools) and a hand full of Lathes and bridgeports.

One of the two school that is part of the team(the one i going too), has the Project Lead the Way classes. I have taken all four class already and its really helps(i'm only a Junior). Both of your teacher that mentor our team from the school teach the PLTW classes. Most of the students on are team know how to program and run the cnc mill. But not many know how to G code.

We are always happy to make part for other team and Are welcome to have other use are stuff.:)

Re: CNC Machines
 

We have a mill and a lathe in our robotics room. We do all our own machining. Its nice

Re: CNC Machines
 

Over at our school we have two regular manual mills, four lathes (one broken), and we also have an outdated CNC machine. We have had CNC classes for three years now where usually three students come in and learn the code. These classes usually last about two to three months where one of the engineers from our sponsor will come in and teach the students how to program the machine.

Re: CNC Machines
 

Someone in our district found some Ed. Materials Budget money back in '03 and we bought a really small benchtop 4-axis CNC from Microkinetics which can make small gearboxes and such with a max on the y-axis at 3.75" and 8" on the X. Then this past fall we became an ROP Robotics class and they bought a CNC Jr. 3-axis mill that can go up to 8" on the Y and 15" on X. Our students learn how to design a part in Inventor, make a Drawing, and then handwrite the G-code from that. A while back I talked a distributor into giving us an evaluation copy of MasterCAM, but it was only good for 6 months. Oh the things that can be done with some good software.

Re: CNC Machines
 

I own a mini-desktop CNC which the team's using right now.. we used it to make pretty much everything from chassis to arm. total construction costs were around $1.5k..
All G-code is handwritten with macro-assist. I wish I knew how to use cam, but I can neither afford it nor use it well.

Re: CNC Machines
 

We Have PLTW at our school. Some of the classes are: Aerospace & Engineering, Computer Intergrated Manufacturing (CIM), CAD 1 & 2, Computer Graphics, & a whole lot more that I dont know the name of.