Subjects covered:

Get to Know a CNC - Week 1

Learn about:

• job origin
• work coordinates vs. job coordinates
• manual control (when it is needed)
• various types of bits

Concepts covered:

Hands-on with the machines. Learn how they move, how to manually control them, mounting up materials.

Get to know the basic principles of a CNC mill by doing exercises on the mini-machine, then re-creating them on the industrial machine.

Exercise 1: Setting up for operations

Exercise 2: Manual control of CNC

Exercise 3: Using coordinates, setting a job origin

First Automation! - Week 2 - Inlay Project

Learn about:

• Intro to CAD/CAM/Vector Art
• Surfacing Materials with CAM
• Understanding pockets/profiles/engraves
• Sending automations

Concepts covered:

Walk through the process of creating a decorative inlay. Learn to surface and secure materials, along with creating pockets and profiles for a fancy inlay project.

This week we concentrate on the machine operations and learn the basic principles for doing a successful inlay with various materials. Students are given a design to work from, and will learn to create their own designs in the next lesson.

Exercise 1: Create a surfacing tool

Exercise 2: Running an automation with pockets

Exercise 3: Running an automation with profiles

Exercise 4: Assembling an inlay

Multi-body Modelling - Week 3 - Inlay Project 2

Learn about:

• Vector Drawing
• Design for CNC
• Tolerance
• Bit Selection
• Speeds and Feeds

Concepts covered:

Learn to adjust graphic design techniques for production using a CNC mill. Learn to plan ahead and account for fit tolerance, material strength, and choosing good bits to work with.

Students work in a vector drawing tool, learning to adapt the design environment for CAM operations.

Project: Fancy Inlay

• Nodes
• Paths
• Tolerance

3-Dimensional CAM - Week 4 - Wall Art Project

Learn about:

• Dressups
• 3D modelling and booleans
• Parametric Concepts
• Slicing

Concepts covered:

In this lesson, students learn to model in 3D and perform slicing operations in order to make parametric 3-dimensional wall art.

Project: Wall Art (Parametric)

• Part Workbench
• Creating 3-dimensional Surfaces
• Slicing operations
• Placement and alignment for CAM

Relief Carving - Week 5 - 3D Surfacting

Learn about:

• Dovetail joints
• Keyed joints
• Scarf joints
• Mortise and Tenon joints
• Lap Joints

Concepts covered:

Learn to create organic shapes using surface modelling, and how to turn them in CAM operations

Exercise 1: Plenth modelling (surface)

Exercise 2: CAM creation (Kirimoto)

Final Project - Week 6 - Flipped 3D Surfacing

Learn about:

• When to use true 3D
• Double-sided 3D Surfaces
• Securing materials

Concepts covered:

Students take on planning and executing a full 3-dimensional project by learning to flip materials. Lesson includes planning ahead for coordinated operations.

Successfully completing the final assignment unlocks 3 hour of machine time you can book for your own use.