Week Outline

1. Wednesday: Global Class on Computer Controlled Machining.
2. Thursday: Local Classes on CNC theory, Rhino CAM, and CNC Practice.
3. Friday: I designed my music stand with integrated saxophone stand on Fusion.
4. Monday: Recitation on Sustainable Materials, Quantum, and Optics.
5. Wednesday: Global Review. I caught up with my documentation.

Global Class

For this week's global class, Neil started with some inspiration and showed us the most impressive projects that have been done for this week. Then, he showed us different machines, materials, vendors, and job shops. Then, he explained different types of toolings and compared some of them. He also talked about speeds and feeds for them. Then he explained different types of fixturing and structure techniques. He also explained different toolpaths and how they work. He talked about the different softwares and file formats that can be used. He finished the class with a very in-depth and focused discussion on safety, and told us basically every type of accident that could happen and how to avoid them.

Local Classes

CNC Theory

Dani started the theory class by explaining the basic anatomy of CNC machining and discussing the different types of CNC machining. Then he went more in depth into the parts of the machines we will be using (3-axis CNC mills) and the components needed in the space around (especially for safety purposes). Then he discussed the different materials that can be used for CNCing, and their particular properties and benefits.

Then he walked us through the workflow of designing for machining. He discussed what limitations we have and what we need to account for in our designs. Then he discussed the process of nesting and showed us different softwares that can be used for it. He then talked about the approaches to building volumes. He then talked about joinery and developed on some strategies. Then he explained the toolpath concept and g-code control softwares.

Then, Dani explained the most common terms used in CNC. After that, Josep compared drill bits and end mills. Then, they showed us different endmills and discussed their characteristics and uses. They explained the concepts of bit anatomy, flute counts and applications, chip loads, feed rates, spindle speeds. Then, they explained how to calculate speeds and feeds with the chip load formula, with the tool manufacturer's datasheet, and with a calculator tool.

Then, Dani introduced the concepts of climb and conventional milling and compared both of them. He discussed different strategies for setting up the material on the machine.

The class finished with a discussion on possible mistakes that can happen, how to avoid them, and what safety precuations to follow.

Rhino CAM + CNC Practice

Assignments

1. Complete your lab's safety training as a group.

After our Rhino CAM local class and before our CNC practice local class, Josep ran us through the lab's safety training. He showed us the different machines, the dust extractors, and the safety measures for each machine.

2. Test runout, alignment, fixturing, speeds, feeds, materials and toolpaths for your machine as a group.

The documentation of the work we did can be found here.

3. Make (design+mill+assemble) something big.

I have a small apartment and the belief that I already own too much stuff, so coming up with something big that I wanted to build was a bit hard. I knew we were being provided with plywood, so I originally thought about doing a piece of furniture. However, I came up with the idea of doing a stand I could use for my final project, so I decided to do a music stand that will both hold music sheets and my saxophone while I'm not playing it. Basically, I was combining two pieces into one: