When operating a machining or fabrication shop, every dollar counts. Most shops have a bandsaw in their equipment lineup to alleviate the cost of getting custom-cut lengths from a metal supplier. While having a bandsaw is useful, it can still be a drag on your checkbook because of the manual labor required.

Letting students take control of the CNC machine for the first time each semester can be terrifying enough if they were paying attention to your wise words of caution, but we all know some of them weren’t taking studious notes. An easy way to save your machine and nerves is to give your students forgiving workpieces, like machinist wax, wood, or plastic, but that’s not always the best solution.

I like new toys as well as the next guy, so I try to take reasonable care of them. Toward that end, I’ve adopted a standardized “check-in” procedure for my shop.

The Maker community has been coming into its own in the last five years. With the help of inexpensive hardware, software, and tools, more at-home engineers and inventors have the ability to access know-how that used to be relegated to major corporations.

Running a business of any kind is full of decision-making, and there are plenty of questions that need to be answered before you can even consider opening the doors.

In case you missed it, the old TV show that pitted highly-engineered machines against one another in a ring of metal-mangling death has returned – BattleBots. Robotics are one of the first elements of science and technology that comes to mind when discussing STEM and its benefits – and what better way to discuss robotics than to have the machines fight to destruction?