For nearly a decade instructor Ken Combs and his students participated in a daylong workshop at University of Kentucky's wood manufacturing lab, during which students got the opportunity to take designs they had created in AutoCAD and manufacture them on the lab's CNC router using programs generated in Mastercam. Combs and the school administration used this experience as a model for its new program.
A Techno Router and Mastercam X4 CAD/CAM software arrived at the school in the fall of 2009. With the exception of his limited experiences at the University of Kentucky, Combs had no experience using the CNC equipment or CAM programming software. Techno provided Combs with two days of training (one day before and one day after the router was installed) and Mastercam provided many hours of support via phone and email. Then Combs was ready to launch the new program with the comforting knowledge that support from his new suppliers was only a phone call away.
A number of Combs' 25 students also proved to be invaluable resources. Some were recruited from his drafting and conceptual design classes. One of their main assignments was to study the excellent manuals and training materials provided by Techno and Mastercam, and figure out how these new systems could be quickly integrated into classroom projects.
Soon, Combs and his students were getting into high gear with class work and starting to make objects that could be sold to offset the cost of the students' projects. The culminating project for the 2010 school year was a unique student-designed piece of furniture that can be used either as a desk or as an entertainment center.
The shop only has one CNC router but plenty of conventional equipment including band saws, table saws, and hand tools. A plan was devised in which the router would be used to make templates and relief cuts that would serve as guides the students could use for cutting and drilling parts with conventional equipment. So, using all the resources available, the shop has been set up as a complete manufacturing operation from design to CAM programming, to CNC machining, to conventional cutting, to final assembly and finishing.
Breathitt's Techno Representative, James Renner, was so impressed with photos of the students' work that he wrote Combs with this observation:
"There are a lot of teachers out there that are either afraid of the technology or have a machine and Mastercam and don't know how to get started. I want you to know how proud of you I am. You have learned more in a few months than some instructors I know who have had the machine for years." |