CNC in Aussie (Vic) Schools

[oncoarse]

When the Vic. Government kindly handed out money to schools for their technology areas to replenish their equipment stocks, I believe many schools took the opportunity to get into CNC. Some bought Roland machines and some (like my school) bought larger "no frills" machines from China or local suppliers. It would be interesting to know what is out there in schools and how the equipment is being used in the schools' curricula. Is the wider CNC community aware that some schools are into CNC and do they have any suggestions as to what we should be teaching students in this area? Is there any training available? Is anyone prepared to offer training to school teachers? Could any businesses offer information (tours) to local schools? etc. etc. I have been relying on my own research and this forum for my P.D. and I'm getting there, but a coordinated effort would be good. Any thoughts / ideas anyone? Cheers.

[D.L]

I reckon software licensing is the only potential stumbling block in terms of cad cam.
The basic G code programming we learned in 3rd year fitting focused on math of late yr9 to early yr10 difficulty. (I failed maths so it was a good catch up!)
I would reckon it should tie into math and science, it would certainly spice up mathematics. Algebraic expression really lost me at school, seeing math put into practice could alter the paths of a lot of school kids.
A discussion with TAFE staff could have your hands on their 3rd year study books (lost mine 8 years ago) which you could slice it down to raw format.
We focussed mainly on G41/42 offset and the trigonometry involved in polar co-ordinate calculation sin,cos,tan. The grand finale was a helical interpolation which was quite a mind bender the first time around.
Calculating speed and feed were pi type calculations, pretty straight forward.
Cad cam is a whole other activity which could tie into graphics class because it pretty much involves learning cad. Kids are so computer savy these days, maybe it would be a snap for them, I'm no einstein.

[mikie]

I currently attend NMIT in Heidelberg and they offer CNC.
Ivan, who is in this CNC group attends and is learning all there is to G Code, running machines etc. I believe he finds it useful.

What suburb are you in?

As for software, NMIT have bought some versions from dangerous Dan which i believe were at a good price so something like this may help keep the costs of licenses down

/M

[breck]

In Queensland, from what I have seen, is that a lot of schools got tied into the Roland products. They had all the service behind them and were set up more focussed for schools. I think this is a bit ufortunate as they are so overpriced in my opinion for what you get. But I dont know about VIC. Where do you teach?. I am looking to move to Melbourne in the next month or so. Know of any D/T jobs going in Melbuorne Fitter and Turner, CNC experience, Ed Degree...

I am interested to see what other schools are using too. I actually think that there is a market there for the taking if someone built a cnc router and marketed it to schools and had a few unit overviews that could be tied to the machine. But the biggest problem with that would be the customer service, waranty side of it. Not the actual building of the machines.

Just my 2c