[Undertones]

While I can't speak as to the purchasing of the equipment we use (our major sponsor, SAIT, is the owner), I can say that learning CNC machining on high end machines is a ton of fun. Having almost no restrictions on what a team can build in-house is incredible. The higher-end machines and software are beneficial to the students in the long run as well, as the equipment they're familiar working on is essentially what they'd be using in industry, potentially later in life. So, if you have any possible way of affording it, HAAS machines with Solidworks and MasterCam works beautifully and is well worth the investment.