Computer Aided Manufacturing
These Projects were for Fundamentals of CAD/CAM class that I took my freshman year and have worked in as a lab assistant since. The class is broken up into two sections, a classroom section that teaches the basics of solidworks, and a lab section that teaches manufacturing techniques. For the first half of each lab section I help the professor teach the students how to use 3-Axis milling machines and to write their G-Code programs. For the second half the students rotate between the milling machines, sand casting and MIG-Welding. Each class I give a small group of students an introduction to welding.
CNC Machining
This is the computer aided part of the manufacturing class. This portion of the class started with machining a piece of aluminum stock down to 3 inches with a tolerance of 5 thousandths of an inch, using dial calipers for measurements and inputting them into the Digital Read Out on the mill. After this I downloaded my G-Code program to the mill. We had to make two programs, one with our initials and one a design of our choosing, which we coded outside of class. After setting up the mill with a center drill, I ran the code and it carved out the designs scene to the left. The top is my initials and the bottom the NASA logo. The left and right images are a sample of the code I wrote for the logo and a simulation of the code.
G-Code is a simple programming language used for CNC machining
Sand Casting
In this section of the class we learned how to cast aluminum using sand molds and that the same principles can be applied to many different materials. We started out with wooden versions of the leopard on the right. We placed the wooden leopards in a metal form and packed it with sand
MIG-Welding
For this part of the class we learned to do some basic MIG-welding. We are given an overview of how it works, the PPE needed and then given demonstrations on each of the welds we are tasked with. We start with just straight welds on a flat piece of metal, then weld two pieces together with a corner weld and finally make a test piece by welding two pieces on top of each other with a slight overlap. This is then pulled apart to assess the strength of the welds with a good weld breaking around 4500 PSI or the metal breaking before the weld. When I did this my metal broke first at 5200 PSI. I also am now of the instructors for this part of the course.