Thanks for all the thoughtful responses! The photo of multiple MPCNCs really got me thinking. While I still plan to start with one large machine (the Lowrider) for full-sheet projects, I’m now also drafting a grant proposal to build a farm of smaller ones. Out of curiosity—are those smaller machines disassembled each year so new students can rebuild them?
By way of background: I’m coming from industry and have been teaching about a year and a half. Before the switch, I had the chance to work with Tormach CNCs, and I’d love to give my students a similar, hands-on experience. I’ve had V1 Engineering bookmarked for years and believe it’s a perfect fit. My goal is to make machine control itself part of the curriculum—moving from basic Arduino stepper control, through single-axis g-code, to a full understanding of what CAM/slicer steps are doing.
This brings me to a request I was going to send @vicious1 directly but will share here. I know this has been discussed and I respect the reservations, but would it be possible to make solid models (.step files) available under a restrictive educational license? My students spend the first weeks of class in Autodesk Fusion, learning design, simulation, and technical drawing. For example, they’re currently iterating and stress-testing 3D printed bridges before building. Being able to assemble the CNC virtually—down to a torsion box table—would give them the chance to practice the same process: design, simulate, and verify fit before building.
I understand why only mesh files are released, but I can promise that any models provided for education would never be shared or used to alter the design. They’d simply let students break down the project into manageable pieces, assemble it digitally, and learn by doing—exactly the experience I want them to have before they ever touch the hardware. Iterations in future years might include building a cabinet around the machine for a laser engraver conversion.
To be clear, we’ll be ordering the Lowrider kit regardless and I sincerely appreciate your work. The solid models would simply make the opportunity more robust.
Ill second @Dandys_Farm suggestion to have a wiki or central location for exchange of lessons and curriculum ideas, and will gladly contribute my own as I figure it out. I’m building an Engineering program at my school, and this is our first year, so I’m still very much planning with a short horizon. I do have some vague ideas that will come into sharper focus when the time comes, but broad strokes:
- Use the machine fitted with a paintbrush and provide explicit coordinates for tartar sauce cups filled with acrylic paint. This would be a fun way to learn about the coordinate system and gcode (for my high school Engineering students) and could also replace/supplement turtle programming with something more hands on (I also teach Computer Science, and teach 6th through 12th graders).
- Use the machine to produce the necessary parts for a KidWind wind tunnel. My school participates in their annual wind turbine design challenge.
- My students will participate in a cardboard boat challenge where human-scale boats are paddled by pairs of students. The machine with a laser cutter or drag knife could enhance this and make it a computer design activity that produces high precision parts for assembly (current methods are hand cuts with box cutters and liberal duct tape at the seams).
- Collaborate with students from other departments. Graphic design students could design graphics for the decks of cornhole boards, with the machine engraving their designs and cutting the boards from plywood sheets.
- Engineering students could design pick-and-place toolheads for the machine (I’ve seen hobbyist designs with a vacuum pump and a balloon filled with coffee grounds) and program the machine to relocate objects, perhaps moving chess pieces or similar.
Thanks for reading. I’m glad to have the support of this community!
