Do any of y'all know how to get access to a machine shop on campus? Like a CNC machine or mill/lathe?

The Underwater Robotics Club (http://www.ncsurobotics.org) needs to get parts milled and we're having trouble finding places to get the work done. It would be great if we could get it done on campus.

Mechanical folks, thoughts?

1/21/2006 1:07:47 PM

back when I was doing e101 prject we needed to cut a metal rod and somebody said we could go to a metal shop over in the design school, though I can't remember where it was or who exactly has access, it was 4 years ago.

1/21/2006 1:26:00 PM

mann hall has a metal shop in the basement; i dunno if its got all of what you need or not. talk to steve wade (he runs it). it would seem like IE or ME would have a good one.

1/21/2006 1:32:26 PM

the IE labs have all of what you mentioned, but they're restricted to usage by IE majors for IE coursework only. You'd definitely need special permission to use the equipment. Daryll Rice is the man who runs and maintains many of the machines in park shops.

1/21/2006 3:08:54 PM

^good luck with that. That shop is run so tight it's crazy.

Your only real chance on campus is the brooks hall shop. There's 3 lathes, 2 mills, a cnc and a bridgeport cnc in there. You would need to talk to Jim/Jack or Chris though to make sure it's alright. If you can find Jack (he works 9-5) he's probably your best bet at getting access.

1/21/2006 3:14:10 PM

definitely design school machine shop

much easier to get into and find people that'll help you

the shop in park shops has some nice CNC machines but takes forever to find someone that'll help you with them

i can get in contact with the guy that did that part of our project, we were milling UHMW for our robot

[Edited on January 21, 2006 at 3:51 PM. Reason : also, if you don't need sub-millimeter precision, just use a milling machine ]

1/21/2006 3:49:10 PM

do you have the materials allready? if not, try http://www.emachineshop.com

1/21/2006 4:22:00 PM

^expensive as hell

1/21/2006 7:53:48 PM

if i'm not in the engineering school, or in any engineering classes, could i get some stuff made?

1/21/2006 7:55:46 PM

Brooks shops are for the design school, not engineering. And probably not.

1/21/2006 8:08:02 PM

Mechanical Engineering has a Senior design lab that should be getting very little usage this time of the semester. Go through your sponsor/faculty chair/administrator or whatever their title is and get them to talk to the guy that handles that lab. Think his name is Dale. You might have to prove your certified and whatnot, but it's worth a shot...

1/22/2006 1:31:59 PM

So, the options are Mann Hall, Brooks Hall, or the ME Senior Design lab?

Sounds like ME or Brooks would be easiest. We have an advisor and the EE dept. really likes what we're doing.

^Wolfridaah, How do I get certified?

1/22/2006 3:27:26 PM

PM sent

1/22/2006 5:36:40 PM

i think there's a machine shop in the basement of poe hall. i'm not sure how to get access though.

1/22/2006 11:09:06 PM

The lab is for Senior Design. They certify the Seniors and then the lab equipment is available for usage on their Senior projects. What I was suggesting was to go through the lab operators to see if you could use the equipment b/c I thought you were a machinist or had training and just needed to use a fabrication lab to build some parts. Most of the TAs used to be cool and very bored until certification and actual work began on design projects.

[Edited on January 23, 2006 at 5:54 PM. Reason : r]

1/23/2006 5:53:35 PM

there is another machine shop in the basement of Cox/Dabney

1/24/2006 3:54:34 PM

And another in Burlington.

1/26/2006 7:05:17 PM