Grant: Applied Research Tools and Instruments Grants

Camosun College is located in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia. Our two campuses serve approximately 19,000 learners a year in certificate, diploma, and bachelor's degree and continuing education programs. The funding received from the NSERC ARTI grant will be used to purchase a state of the art Nakamura CNC lathe. This piece of equipment will contribute greatly to student learning and the prototyping and applied research capabilities of the College. Within the past 18 months, the College has completed the Babcock Interaction Lab which houses Camosun Innovates and the Camosun Technology Access Centre (CTAC). The Babcock Interaction Lab has a dual focus: to support and develop curriculum to strengthen the experience of Camosun students, and to assist local small/medium sized enterprises (SME's) through fee-for-service work and grant funded opportunities. The Babcock Interaction Lab affords students the exposure to the technical equipment that they will see out in industry as well as training opportunities for safe and confident operation of such equipment. With the Nakamura CNC lathe, students will have the opportunity for exposure to a modern industrial turning machine. Training for students will come from the inclusion of advanced CNC turning programming in the learning curriculum. CTAC CNC experts will assist faculty in the development of course material regarding this extremely versatile piece of machinery. In addition, the Nakamura CNC lathe will fill a void that currently exists in the CTAC's advanced machining capabilities, and greatly enhance the capacity to assist regional SME's with their applied research projects. In the past, CTAC has used its existing Matsuura MX-520 CNC mill to manufacture parts that should be manufactured on a CNC lathe, and this greatly increases the cost to industry clients. In essence, CTAC has to use the ""incorrect"" tool for the job and this increases time, complexity, and cost on some projects that could be avoided with the addition of the proposed piece of equipment. In some cases, CTAC has had to turn away projects involving precision machining due to the lack of an in-house CNC lathe.