Enhancing Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Education with CAM and CNC Machining

To effectively serve student career success, mechanical engineering programs must teach how to account for manufacturing considerations in design.The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) has identified manufacturing education as one of the greatest weaknesses as perceived by industrial employers of recent-graduate mechanical engineering hires.Additionally, in its 2014 report to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership 2.0 highlighted the need for universities to provide engineers with appropriate manufacturing education to sustain emerging technologies, a need which persists to this day.This Student Paper proposes the adoption of a laboratory course at university-level mechanical engineering programs in which undergraduates would learn and practice the basics of computer-aided manufacturing and apply that knowledge to CNC milling machines.The motivation for this course is to better prepare students for design and manufacturing careers by reconciling mechanical engineering curricula with the hiring need in the industry for engineers who understand common manufacturing processes and how to design for them.