School Projects

Here's one of the projects we've been making in the Fab class I've been teaching. I tried to come up with a couple of projects that would involve a variety of skills that would end up with something useful to them. They all seem to be pretty happy with this one. All of them weren't happy with their results - after they got it done they wished they would have done a little bit better job. That's a good sign, though. While we were making them, I made another one for myself and then the lab tech collared me and asked about making an extra one for the school shop and maybe one for himself, so with the help of one of my students we knocked out two more. If I get a can of that gold paint I mentioned in the last post, I can try it out on the roll-a-round and see how I like the looks of the color. Even if I don't like the look for the wheels, at least the paint won't go to waste.

Here's another piece for the trophy shelf I put up last week. This is a technical exercise but it looks pretty cool. It's made by making a linear move while making a plunge move while rotating the part. The professor  was waiting for a couple of the students to finish up their parts, so while there was a pause in the action we worked on writing a program for this project. I wasn't much help but I was able to follow along with most of the logic at least. We've only got two more sessions and then that's it for the machining class. I am going to sign up for another class in the fall. Might have to add another shelf for the parts I make in that class. I'm looking into getting my machinist certificate or maybe even the associates degree. My professor is also the big cheese of the program, so I'll make an appointment to see him about all that over the summer. Most all of his classes run just one day per week, so if I decide to take one class per semester, I should have my degree when I'm about eighty.