[Joseph Smith]

My team did some water jetting for the first time this year, and we've done a few laser cut parts in the past too. When it comes to designing a part to be water jetted, it takes a different mindset and set of skills. I believe that students can learn a great deal during the design process for these parts. We tend to find a balance between sheet metal parts and manually lathed/cut/drilled parts that keeps our fabrication team busy and engaged but allows us to go for the more complex designs. I think that there's still plenty to learn about the sheet metal forming, bending and assembling process, and still plenty of hands-on fabrication work that goes along with it.