Hello everybody,
I hope all is well. I was wondering will there be any classes soon for the CNC? I would really love to be able to use it.
You and everyone else! There has been noise about āsoonā for several months
I am a new member and would also like to learn to use the CNC. Hopefully they can put together a class soon.
At this point I will feed or pay someone for their time to certify for this. One of the biggest reasons I started back at Makerspace was to get access to the CNC router and I donāt think weāve had a single training class all year.
The more people trained the less time available for those who already have access. This could help explain not offering new classes for months and months. If certain equipment, access, and training is not open for everyone at the DMS then just say so. Open to hearing other reasons.
I can promise you that no one is not teaching classes to hoard tool usage. The reason for lack of training classes is we [DMS / Woodshop in particular] relied on and got complacent having only one person to teach the class for the MultiCAM. When COVID struck, he stopped teaching classesā¦
I would LOVE if another member [or seven] stepped up and started teaching and opening up usage. I wish I was more versed in its use so I could. The greatest thing about the Makerspace is also its biggest weakness - it is a totally volunteer organization. I get voluntold by my wife all the time, but unfortunately we canāt do that at DMS.
I understand your [and otherās] frustration, I know there was talk about having a combination of online and in person testing - Iām not sure where that stands. There has also been work on getting the MultiCAM sig back online. Change is slow, often takes a champion to own it and run with it. So progress is happening, but without the champion it is just extremely slow.
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Thatās an extremely cynical response to this. Weāre still dealing with a pandemic, and itās a bit of a reach to claim that the reason may be selfishness and some sort of elitism. Especially when almost every time Iāve been in there, no one was using it. Itās just sitting there dormant.
That said, I currently have no access to a number of things at Makerspace that I would like to do, and because classes either are so sparse they fill if you arenāt looking at the site at least twice a day, or just never happen in the first place, it extremely limits whatās available. I know before the pandemic, you didnāt have to wait long for classes for just about everything to come up, but if we had one person teaching classes on a huge piece of tech with this much demand to be cleared, and they havenāt taught classes in over a year, thereās no signs of anyone stepping up to take their place, and no classes are scheduled at allā¦that doesnāt mean slow progress, that kind of means no progress at all.
Look, my offer for money or food stands. Or if I can just youtube it and then prove to someone I know how it works to be cleared, Iāll do that.
If you are looking for something to YouTube, learn Vcarve Pro. That is the software we use to generate the toolpaths. Thatāll get you a step ahead to familiarize yourself with it.
That machine sits idle 99% of the time. Only a couple people regularly use it, most use it only sporadically. Donāt forget we have construction for the expansion going on at the same time as BOD elections and everything else going on. People are just starting to get the second stick and there has been a lot of issues with mask compliance these days so I donāt blame people at all for staying away if they are worried about their health
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It would help @Team_MultiCAM if someone made it clear on what it takes to be a MultiCam āteacherā. I myself am a cnc machinist and 30 year veteran of woodworking and am cleared on the MC and run my own CNC professionally. I could easily show someone how to run it - BUT Iām not on a teacherās list so I canāt add anyone to the AD. Please consider this, if the person has to put in a LOT of effort to become a āteacherā they probably arenāt going to do it. Knowledge is wasted if it is too hard to disseminate it. just 2 pennies worth. cheers!
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a couple months back @IanLee asked for volunteers to step up and be owners and teachers i stepped up to be a teacher and as far as i know the teachers are waiting for the parameters to clear people before we can put classes up
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So first it was that we didnāt have anyone stepping up to teach, now we have people stepping up to teach but arenāt allowed to? I feel like this should be a pretty easy fix.
Um, that or a VIRAL PANDEMIC that kills people.
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Ian is trying to herd cats. We had a meeting of āownersā last night to discuss a plan for teaching and nobody showed up.
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