Mike, I don't think its lack of interest that's held back responses, its' just not being inundated with ideas given the limited resources you've got,at least thats my excuse. there's stuff you can do with hand tools, and benchwork is an important part of it, but most of this work would be the antithesis of fun; at least for a 15 year old. a program teaching scraping or filing hexagonal holes probably isn't going to cut it
fishing lures is a good one, isn't there some metal to use other than lead though? toxicity of fumes etc, I'd check that out before using it. sounds like the CNC has potential, even if its engraving their names in plastic or aluminum key chains.
aren't there companies targeting schools around robotic stuff? maybe not kits, but close to, sort of heavy duty mechano. thought i saw that at a school. anyway, something like that that involves a bit of electronics and not much machining might work and robotics is popular.