high school project ideas

[stanfield]

we are new to cnc and mastercam, I am a HS teacher that has started a 18wk manufacturing class for my tech students. they will spend about 4-6 weeks in cnc section of the class. Does anyone have any suggestions regarding project ideas in the wood area? I want the students to walk away with a product to make the class more.

 

thanks

[Fig sign]

What level of Mastercam (1,2 or 3) and what machines (mills,lathes ..) do you have.

I think 4 weeks is very small amount of time to make something serious.

You can give them a task do make a wall clock,

the standart mechanism is cheap and can be easily assembled afterwards.

A wooden frame, nice engraved wooden letters it can be a nice stuff, I like something like Salvador Dalli design.

 

PS. Mastercam forum is far more popular place to chat, all istructors come there to chat.

And we ,common people can alwais help you too.

And welcome to the board !

 

Iskander the unsophisticated.

[TeccBoxx]

I would split up the class into two sections for the first 9 weeks make sure they understand mastercam and the G-code. Then the last 9 weeks do a few simple projects like a Co2 car or a nesting cube. There is a book on this website you may want to look at as well.

 

http://www.emastercam.com/resources/project_workbook9.html

 

Good Luck

[stanfield]

the wall clock is a good idea. I agree it is a short period of time. But this is an intro semester long class and I also include autocad, hand drafting and woodworking.

 

We run a techno 4896 with router 9.1.

another question off the subject is any suggestions or links to shop built hold downs?

 

thanks

[Fig sign]

Excuse my bad knowledge of English ,sir,but what do you call hold downs ( a sort of clamps or some fast clamp - unclamp stuff or vises)?

You can buy a lot of stuff ,I bet, but the best clamps that I ever had I made myself and this is a very simple job.

Alluminium is cheap ,this is a fast run work and alluminium is enough to clamp wood.

Give your guys to cut some metal !

 

BTW I like to cut wood used to cut it a lot once

and like to engrave chineese calligraphy on wood !

[Rick Damiani]

Amoung other things, I sell Techno routers. What some of our customers do is lay a sheet of wood on the table and use woodscrews to hold thier material down, seperating the part from the rest of the stock with a bandsaw or a planer and using a conventional router to clean up the edges. There are lots of other interesting things you can do with such an arrangement as well. If you are in Californa or Nevada, you can take one of our (fairly inexpensive) router classes and we'll show 'em to you.

[Rich Musson]

I completed a project last year to introduce the students to the mill and the computer with a Letter Block Project for the feeder elementary schools to the high school. During the year we made seven sets of alphabet blocks with extra vowels (AEIO&U). I cut-up 2x4's into 3.5" blocks and used an 1/8 inch flat end mill to make the cut. It takes alot of time but was a great community service project. The students learned to set-up the mill, clamp stock and run the file. An eight foot $1.69 2x4 makes an alphabet set -give or take mistakes.

[stanfield]

that a great idea! I think i'll use it.

[Mike Annetts]

Hello

Lst year I had my grade eights do a design on a clock face which went okay. Other projects we have done are intarsia (pretty nice, various boxes, etc. My grade 11 and 12 have to design a project of their choice on mastercam, make a cutting plan for the materials and then cut out the plywood or soldi stock on the cnc router (shopbot). We have had some realy nioce sutff from stereo cabinets to hope chests to an electric guitar body. One kid made a huge bridge for his backyard using 2 by 4's. He used the router for half lap joints, etc. worked well. They have about 90 hours in the shop total. its a little nerve wracking with the price of materials but it generally works out. we use a lot of Wheat strawboard which is cheap and nice to cut. very dust though so you have to have a good dust collection system going. Mastrcam developed a tmplate for a cnc car for younger kids. I used it with a couple but we never did cut it out as our machine was too small then. I generally find that the hardest part is helping the kids with the machine while trying to watch the other students do something else. I have a couple of older students take a additional course on cnc with me on their spares and then I use them as resourses whenever possible. That makes a huge difference. Let me know if I can help.

 

Mike

[Snap]

Guys:

Brand new to this forum. Wanted to say Hello and give a few specs hoping for some input.

I teach Woodworking 9-12 at our local high school and we just purchased a Techno 4848. Man she is sitting in my shop and has not even been turned on for the first time.

I have reps coming for some "adult supervision" soon [i hope], but in the meantime I have been working and self teaching myself with Mastercam v.9.1..............This is awesome stuff to say the least!

Starting to understand the basics of 2D project construction in mastercam. Had to reteach myself Cad after being away from it for several years. The commands and strokes are a bit different from what I was working in.

I think rast2vec is going to be big for me....Finally figured out a procedure for working an image into Mastercam from my scanner. It worked, but I want to try several more designs before I say I can do this with my students.

Any thoughts on a small project to start us off with? I was thinking of a small wooden box. I was going to have the kids glue and machine a block of hardwood down to a specific size. Next have them work up a post for engraving their name into what will be the top or lid of the box. Maybe a machined groove around the top, perhaps 3/8" in from all edges and ends. Next I would machine off the top/lid with coventional tooling and then on the remaining section of the block we could do a "pocket procedure" to hollow out the body of the box.

How does this sound to the folks, who have the experience. As stated earlier, I am brand new with this technology. That's not to say I am brand new to teaching Tech Ed. I have been doing what i do for many years. This will be year 34 and I got to tell you, I'm excitied!

Hope to hear some thoughts and THANKS in advance.

SNAP

[Ron]

Those are some good ideas. I have made several projects on the router. Firstly, I would standardize them so you can just post and cut and not have to worry about different clamping set ups for each one. I have found that push type toggle clamps work the best. There is no profile of the clamp above the wood to crash a bit. An easy project for beginning woods is a cd holder. Ours holds 12 cds and is roughly 11.25 x 6.5. Contact me directly and I can give you a pic. Another one is a 4 x 4 x .75 block that they can program in up to three letters. we do relief cutting where the letters are raised and all other material removed. Hope this helps.

 

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[thedoctor]

Have used Mastercam and solid model program in Mastercam for 12 years at high school level. Some projects for grade 11 and 12 have been sundial molds for pouring concrete into. Cut 2" styrofoam and reverse geometry. Use pocket, contour and drilling programs. Crib boards are good projects for teaching programming in Mastercam. Have cut blue wax for investment casting, currently working on Belt Buckles cut Aluminum and bend slightly after milling. Cut molds for golf putters, one of my favourites. Advanced level. Takes roughly the semester 16 weeks to teach program, milling, pocketing, drilling, design curriculum. Norm.