971 CNC Router

[cxcad]

Looking through 971's photo album (I'm a super fan, lol), I saw that they have made their own CNC router. And some questions popped up.

• Why would a team do such a thing when so many CNC routers are out there? Cost of a custom one?
• What type of resources like books, manuals, designs were used to build such a router? I know there's tons of resources on building ones that can route through wood but very few on aluminum specific ones
• How much skill does it take to design such a router? It would be cool to have the students work on it as an off season project.

....Any plans to share the design (wishful thinking)....