I'm taking machining/casting classes

(Yeah, there were 16 weeks of lab, and one guy showed up once and the other guy twice. There were 32 lectures and the latter guy also only showed up twice. What a winner!)

I am rather surprised at the lack of discipline in general.

I saw the meowing guy the other day. He just stared at me. I don't know if he was mad because he got a bad grade (hopefully) or if he was just lost in some meow-fest in his head. I genuinely hope the other lying loser failed. He shouldn't be rewarded for selfish, piss-poor behavior. If I ever see him again, I don't know what we'd have to say to each other.

Changing the subject slightly; There's a guy at school here who sneaks around and spray paints the buildings and gets where he's not supposed to. Once, he fell out of a drop ceiling right in front of the school cops. He was busted, but not punished. Another time, he physically broke into (by smashing out the window) a storage closet and started stealing trash bags full of chemicals. He was caught. He still attends classes here (just saw him yesterday) and still lives in the dorms, I believe. Shouldn't people like that either be kicked out or in jail?

Most of those old B'ports used a Boss8i controller. Never have seen that vintage with any other controller type.
Greco box to feed data to these controllers via floppy were new and trick in the early '80s.
I still use the paper trick. Cigarette cellophane is .001 and most notebook paper is .003

Things have sped up considerably since that era. The basics remain the same.
These days, knowing your programming software is more important than code.
But that basic is still necessary.

I hope you enjoy the trade. I have for over 30 years. I sometimes question it's future at times.
But it certainly has been good to me.

Week 2: February 4, 2011

We did more manual programming, block by block. The Bridgeport only crashed 4 times. Next week, we will have a programming assignment; a contour and 3 drilled holes.

I am afraid this semesters updates to this thread won't be as exciting as last.. if we need fire and danger, I might have to start taking pics of the glass blowing.

Crazy:

As a favor to us, if things get too boring, can you not just make some crap up to keep us in suspense? You've done an excellent job to date and I may have to stop reading if this gets too normal.

T.

Well, this thread is about my materials minor. Maybe my minor in math would excite you. (I try to get a lot of mileage out of this picture...)



Should I post about my minor in explosives?



Should I post about my time on the trap and skeet team?



Should I post about my senior design project?

Fly this...




Past this...




And blow up what's left....

This is cool! My senior project was a clean-sheet design and build of two radio controlled aircraft, one glider and one tow plane. We tested them inside the big field house where the football team usually practiced. To get close to the required glide duration the glider ended up with a 6' plus wingspan. I remember that entire project very fondly.

This is an autonomous bomber.. "clean-sheet" design, too. We're starting construction, and we'll be flying it within a couple months.

I couldn't imagine flying a 6'+ wide plane indoors.

This was my sophomore design plane (NOT "clean-sheet" more like "here are the f'ing instructions.. build it remotely close and you'll pass"):



Look at it go:

Nooooooooononononono.

Take this.




Wrap it in this.



And fly it past this.

Yeah well, if the boring gets boring you can always keep us entertained with things that fly, explode or kills other stuff.

How you decide to combine the above, I leave in your capable hands ...



John

maybe he's seen your sig line of bikes???



you learn more about machining, machining on old manual stuff

I don't have any 80's or 90's bikes.

I agree that you learn a lot about machining by working on manual stuff, but that's what ME153 was for. I made a clock. I know I'm not an expert now at machining because of it, but you'd think that with at least three other CNC labs in this building the graduate level CNC class (ME353) would use a modern CNC mill to teach the CNC users/designers of the future... or, at least something closer to the cutting edge of the technology than the blunt mid-section. I am confident I learned more about CNC programming in a day on nearly-brand-new mills and lathes at an internship this summer by digging into a program and writing and editing code than the three weeks so far of typing block by block what someone tells me to on a machine that is this -----> <----- close to using punch tape.. and even closer to crashing and never recovering.

I'll get off my soapbox now.

You are correct, but the class you are in is designed around the other 30 people who don't come, don't pay attention, and would have crashed their pretty new mills.

Perhaps if early on you had gone to the advisor they might have been able to slide you over into a real class.

Ouch. Define "real class." I wanted a CNC class, and this is it.

It sounds like you go to school in a 1980's college comedy movie.

Aren't there usually girls in college in the movies, though?

Yes, please.

Hey you said there was a masters level course, often you can get special permissions to join those courses despite not having prerequirements, or being in a masters level program.

That's what I mean by "real" class.

graduate level machinist class???

you going for a PE?

This class is ME353. 300-level classes are graduate level. I think it's half-seniors and half-grad students. I heard a rumor that there is a ME453, but I can't confirm it.

No.
I wanted to take ME153 for fun. I did.. and started this thread.
I wanted to take Met307 & 308 (casting) for fun. I did.. and did all the work myself.
I discovered ME153 and Met307, combined with Fatigue (ME336), Fracture Mechanics (ME344), and Aerospace Materials (AE377) got me a minor in Materials.
I got an internship over the summer where I ran CNC's.
I decided I wanted to take a CNC class (ME353), too.
Turns out that I can use ME353 for my remaining 300-level departmental technical elective.