[youtube]qz0jY-Ngjh4[/youtube] Every month we get to have some fun cutting one of the parts from our Tormach Projects Library. This month we decided to go easy and create some art with a 3D relief in wood. This project was provided to us by one of our local makerspaces. Chris Meyer, the founder of Sector67, originally used a 5x5x5 block of cedar, but we found some scrap 4x4 pine in the shop.

An Arduino is a single-board computer that was originally designed as an open-source prototyping platform, but has evolved into being a powerful unit capable of controlling a number of different devices, robotics systems, art creations, and everything in between. Just do a Google search for Arduino projects, and you'll see the overwhelming capabilities of this little PCB. "What does that have to do with machining?" You might ask.

Experiential education started to emerge in the 1980s, but it seems like technical education teachers knew this long before all the research was published. Keeping content fresh and finding projects students are interested in is a hurdle that seems to get consistently harder to overcome. Tormach just released its project library to help you do just that.

For obvious reasons, we're pretty well-versed when it comes to machining here at Tormach. But throughout our company - in several different departments - we also have an array of makers. We've seen Tormach employees create everything from horseshoe lamps to remaking wedding rings to DIY 3D printers.

When the University of Wisconsin-Platteville sought to add equipment into their school's Industrial Studies program they chose the Tormach PCNC 770. After purchasing four machines, instructors and students quickly incorporated the mills into the curriculum. Tormach staff recently visited the campus to see firsthand how the mills are being used and to learn more about an exciting project students undertook for one of Wisconsin's most historic homes.

  In early 2014, the University of Wisconsin – Platteville purchased four PCNC 770s which are featured in our most recent Customer Success Story video series. Instructors in the school’s Industrial Studies department kindly opened their doors to allow us to see how the university utilizes their Tormach mills, and incorporates them into their curriculum.