What I do....

[Stephen]

I teach at Mountain View H.S. in Bend, Oregon. Its been a struggle to get CNC into the program because of the costs. We have to beg, borrow, and cobble things together to make ends meet. We have a few seats of MC, two small Techno Isel 3 axis mills, and a broken Rhino CNC lathe(that nobody knows how to repair). Our local industry donated a 5'X14' CNC plasma cutter which is our only gem. It took a while to get setup and interfaced with MC, but it now works great. The shop also has the basic manual lathes and mills along with some welding equipment.

How about you folks?

[Reece L Gibson]

We have 22 full blown seats of Mastercam

Roboform sinker,Robofill 310 wire

Leadwell CNC Lathe,6" chuck with tail stock

Fadal 20x16 with 4th Axis

Hitachi Hicell with 10" chuck

[Michael Reynolds]

Our CNC lab has 23 seats of mcam (soon to be v9 level 3 w/solids), one Hardinge cobra turning center, one Monoarch VMC w/40 tool changer (BIG), one Cellcon horizontal machining center with B axis, one Harrison 17" CNC lathe, one Miyano twin spindle cnc lathe w/live tooling, two Kryle VMC's (like a fadal), two Bridgeports w/prototrack controllers, one hardinge tool room lathe, one harig surface grinder.

Our manual lab has 5 Bridgeports (1 w/prototrack), 5 LeBlond 15" lathes, 3 hydraulic surface grinders, 3 tool and cutter grinders, drill presses, etc.

On the weekends, it all becomes "Mike's playground...".

I love my job....

Mike R.

[Phil Orenstein]

At QCC we have a Fadal CNC VMC 2016L with a rotary

4th axis, a KIA CNC Turning Center with a Fanuc Series O/T control, a retrofitted Bridgeport Series I with an Allen Bradley Bandit 3 control, a Dea CMM Machine donated by Krug Precision Inc. plus manual lathes and Bridgeports etc. Also our classroom has 15 seats of Mill 3 V8.1.1.

Phil Orenstein

[Stephen]

How did I forget! My newest addition is a Bridgeport knee mill with Servo CNC retrofit (Seven years old with just a few hours on it). I mooched it from our CAD dept.

You folks make me drool! Was all this equipment in place or did you put it together over the years? You must have a lot of support…moral and financial.

Is your equipment updated regularly?

[Phil Orenstein]

I am new in the Dept, but our school is a small cog in a big bureaucratic city university system. So it has been very frustrating to say the least, to get anything good for the students. The equipment we have now either came from donations or blood sweat and tears.

Phil

[ 01-06-2002: Message edited by: Phil Orenstein ]

[Michael Reynolds]

Actually, when the program started in '95, all they had was a Cellcon HMC and a Monarch VMC. I built the lab up from there when I started in '96. Beg, borrow, cry, whine, all of that.

Mike R.

[Phil Orenstein]

Sounds like that's just what I may be doing in the near future to build our Dept up from where it is now. Thanks for sharing that, Michael. As they say, the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

Phil

[Stephen]

Do you folks get a lot of industry support? How about from the machine tool dealers? In our area 5% is the max discount. You would think they would do more to help out education and get their name out there for good P.R. If they followed MC's lead on pricing for education I would have a well equipped shop by now.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

We have 2 labs. Lab 1 - 21 Seats of V8 Mill Level 3 and Lathe and 10 Seats have V8 Wire. Lab 2 has 21 seats of Mill Level 3, Lathe and Solids(This is my classroom). Out in the Machine shop we have 2 HAAS VF1's - one has a collet indexer, 2 Bridgeports with Fanuc 0MC - one has Full Rotary, 2 HAAS Lathes, a Cincinati Lathe with a Fanuc 21iTA contril, A Cincinati Arrow with a Vickers 2100 Control and a retrofit Bridgeport with I'm not sure what kind of control. We have 2 Brother wire EDM's, a CMM, about 20 Bridgeports and about 20 Manual Lathes. Not bad in my estimation. Gene Haas has been very generous to our institution, I don't believe they were donated but they were practically given away from what I've heard.

My personal reccomendation is to not even bother talking to a Machine Tool Dealer, go directly to the builder. They are more able to absorb discounts that are Distributors. Right now may be a good time because machine tool sales are pretty sluggish. I'm sure HAAS will do you right, Fadal has threatened to put a machine on our floor but never came through, guess they don;t really support educations all that well. Gene Haas has the right idea, the Bridgeports sit idle and everybody gravitates to the Haas except for me though, I prefer Fanuc but I like the Haas control too.

JM2C

[Ron]

I teach at Clearwater High School in Clearwater, Kansas. I have built my lab up to 16 seats of AutoCAD 2000. 12 seats of MC 8.1 Level 3. A 50 x 100 CNC router by Warthog, A fadal 88 40 x 20 CNC mill and I am still looking for more. Like most others on the list, the machine portion is mostly donations.

[burns]

I'm in my sixth year of teaching Precision Machining at the high school level, but this is my first year at a career center that isn't afraid to spend some money. We just got 18 seats of MC on the network. Along with 2 hasps to take to the state and national vica competitions. Are any of your high school programs active in Automated Manufacturing competition.

[cadcam]

So you tech at a high school and they have 18 seats of mastercam at this high school.

Well looks as thow machine shop in school has changed.

[Michael Reynolds]

Here's my 2C on teaching mastercam to precision machining students at the high school level. Please don't take offence at this, but here it is:

The way I see things, teaching the software isn't nearly good enough. I think a student has to know alot about machining and nc code BEFORE EVEN TOUCHING mcam. I've seen too many students who think they know cnc programming cuz they know how to generate code from a software package. But when it comes to reading the nc code, speeds and feeds, tooling, depths of cut, etc., these students would probably be lacking.

It's always been my philosophy that a student needs to learn basic manual machining, then basic programing (by hand), THEN the cam stuff. I know at our local high (trade)schools, where the students attend for 2 or 3 hours a day (at best), there isn't even enouph time to teach the basic manual machining skills. So when you try to crowd in nc programming and cam software, everything else (including the cam software) gets watered down.

I know that when a school markets it's programs, emphasizing the teaching of MasterCAM (or other software) is certainly a selling point, but from a practical point of view, I'd make sure the students had a firm grip on the basics before endeavoring into the realm of CadCAM.

Again, not to offend anyone, just my 2C.

Respectfully,

Mike R.

[Stephen]

In a perfect world I would agree with Mike 100%, but the reality is most high school programs would die a quick death if instructors taught all the basics first. When I first started teaching I taught a lot of the basics and that resulted in boring the kids to tears or putting them to sleep. I now teach a combination of the basics and MC to be successful. With short class times (87 min.) and being an elective class you have to keep it fun for the kids or they will vote with their feet and your numbers will drop.

MC must be aware of this since they put a lot of effort in developing Quickparts 2D and 3D. I feel that a HS instructor’s job is to expose kids to what’s out there in the work world, not to produce ready for employment workers. HS instructors should be getting students ready for grade 13 whether that is a university, community college, or on the job training.

This is just my perspective that may have little validity for others. Also, out here in Oregon we don’t have much for HS trade schools. I realize trade schools have a different emphasis than what my program offers.

What are other HS instructors focusing on?

[Michael Reynolds]

Stephen, I completely understand your point, but you also have to know that unless a student understands that when he or she gets out of a HS program wherin he or she was exposed to CadCAM, he or she IS NOT ready for employment in this field.

I've seen too many HS students who come into a college CadCAM program thinking that he or she should be granted the first year of the program.

In my service area we have a thing called Tech Prep, where students take high school classes that prepare them for a specific college path.

I guess that my philosophy is and always will be that in order to call yourself a cnc programmer, you should first have a very firm grip on basic nc code and machining.

Again, I undestand the marketing aspect, but I also know what is and is not "real" in my field.

VERY respectfully,

Mike R.

[burns]

Everyone's perspective on the issue of what's being taught in high school Precision Machining programs has great merit and is discussed at advisory committee meetings every year. To try to keep this short, in my situation there are two reasons for a heavy CNC and CAD/CAM curriculum.

1. CNC programming/set-up/operation, and CAD/CAM usage are part of the OCAP training guidelines

2. Recruitment and retention

We are well aware students will need further training in order to perform these applications in the workplace. But they will have a basic knowledge and educated opinion on whether or not this will be there career goal. So much for short.

[Hy D. Tran]

1 seat Mastercam, 1 seat Gibbscam. 1 rapid prototyper; 1 Fadal VMC15 (with 4th axis), and some old manual lathes & mills (no DRO's). I don't teach Mastercam; I hand the students the book & tell them to do the exercises. My situation is slightly different; we have 3rd/4th year engineering students who need to do projects, so they learn enough to be able to do their projects. We use Pro/E to export IGES to Mastercam. We also have Pro/Mfg, but it's a dog...

[Ron]

I am teaching HS now. Lets look at this. We are trying to teach a career in 90 min slots every other day... its not going to happen. My philosophy is to broaden their knowledge base but by no means will they be a machinist! In their current project, they have to square up 2 blocks to .005 and drill pins (we are making injection molds). Then, we are designing the molds to be cut on the CNC. This is only a baby step on the learning curve but it introduces them to XYZ axis, precision measurement, manual machining, squaring, drawing, blueprint reading, programming on MC, machine setup, and milling. We do the best we can with what we have. I think we are doing more than the majority of HS out there, some of which dropped their IA programs totally!!! And yes...HS has changed tremendously, we now have to entertain in order to keep our classes full in light of all the requirements placed on the kids.

[Michael Reynolds]

Hi Ron, I'm guessing you're response was triggered by my post. I completely understand the HS point of view. Completely. But from my experiance, it's very hard to work in reverse. I mean that if a student comes to college having had more of a taste for CNC/cadcam, it's hard for me to make them interested in learning the basic machining principles necessary to understand the hard core programming/cadcam stuff. They don't want to have to get their hands dirty for a semester or two before getting into the "advanced" stuff. And believe me, it's not JUST the HS students, it's everybody who comes into a cadcam program.

 

I gotta change the name of my program from "machine tool technology" to somethin' cooler, like "computer aided manufacturing"...

 

Please don't take offence to my opinion on this, but I see this problem every day.

 

BTW, mabye thier should be a "technology" requirement in HS, like the math & english requirements. (& Technology does not necessarily mean learning Word & Excell)

 

Thanks for listening!

 

Mike R.

 

[ 02-05-2002, 09:14 PM: Message edited by: Michael Reynolds ]

[Mike Freimann]

I worked as a protype Machinist for nine years. I built all kinds of things printer parts, hip replacements and other high tech tight tolerance parts. Then for a while I worked for the West Coast office of CNC Software. I did industrial training; posts and tech support even an occasional demo. Next I worked for a small company selling Wood Routers all over the country. Then I started my own company doing contract programming. I took a six month job teaching High School at a Skill Center. The first project the first day I had students making 3D wireframe drawings. I did not inherit any curriculum. So we really went at it hard. I would spend all of my free time just trying to think of things to keep the students busy. We had a retrofitted Bridgeport. I would not dare letting the students touch. The E-stop did not work. The kids were not by any stretch of the imagination close to a Machinist. We worked on real life skills as much as if not more than Mastercam. I learned far more than I gave.

 

My point is that I have trained lots of people to use Mastercam to make money. I have to say most don’t have the basics. In fact if I only taught or sold to Qualified Programmers I would be in some other line of work. Not all people can or should be CNC programmers but this field is so big and so diverse. There are more jobs related to this field then we can imagine.

 

I have met a few of my former students. One particular student now runs his uncles shop. He went to a private tech school and said he learned more in our class and the tech schools credits are not transferable. The VICA team from that High School had completed their part before any other school in the Nation. They did not win because they did not complete their paper work. Opps, I forgot to cover that.

 

GO High School programs.They inspire our future.

 

Mike