Students as fabricators

[Ian Curtis]

If you fabricate parts in house, how many of your students are proficient* with a given piece of equipment?

For example, last year 1778 had about 20 students. We had a South Bend, a tabletop CNC mill, CNC router, laser cutter, bandsaws, and drill presses.

We had probably 15 kids that were proficient the bandsaw and drill press, 7 that could use the laser cutter and 3D printer, 4 that were proficient with the mill, 2 that were proficient with the router, and no one that was proficient with the lathe. The distribution wasn't that different on my high school team, except we didn't have a 3D printer.

Is that a common distribution? If you train more kids to use your equipment, how do you do it in a way that it is fun for them? I would think if we did specific traditional equipment classes we run the risk of boring them, and worse they might not retain the information.

Thanks!

*We'll define proficiency as making simple parts without someone hovering over their shoulder.