The mills in ETRL run on Mastercam software.īronk and Jack Spieker, WSU mechanical engineering major, worked as technical assistants for Hutchinson in past semesters, Hutchinson said.
#How much is mastercam software#
Mastercam is a company that creates software used for manufacturing machinery, Hutchinson said. When the 2021 competition came up, Hutchinson said he encouraged Bronk to finish the keyboard, which he started before the pandemic. The 2020 competition was canceled because of the pandemic. Mastercam sponsors the Wildest Parts competition every year. Bronk competed in the post-secondary education division, which includes colleges, universities and trade schools. The Mastercam Wildest Parts competition is a machining competition for students and professional engineers to design and build something unique, according to the Mastercam website. He said the first thing he did was tell Hutchinson and then his parents. He received the notification that he won the competition in September. “And it’s not something that a student – with the experience our students have – tackles something that complicated, so I was all over letting him try it,” Hutchinson said.īronk said he finished engraving the keyboard shortly before the deadline to mail it in June. Bronk wrote all the coding for the keyboard and engraving. Anodization is a process that prevents aluminum and other materials from oxidizing, said Robert “Kurt” Hutchinson, WSU mechanical engineering laboratory manager.Įngraving the 109 keys with all the right letters, numbers and words was also time-consuming and difficult because of their shape, he said. Once all the pieces of the keyboard were milled, Bronk said he had to send it to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, to be anodized before engraving the keys. Let’s try and do something a little cooler,’ that ended up being more difficult to machine,” he said. “I first started making it easy to machine, then I was like, ‘you know, this is lame. He wanted a new keyboard and started the project with a simple design in mind, then later scrapped it.
#How much is mastercam how to#
Bronk said he had to figure out how to work around the machines’ limits because of the keyboard’s slanted shape and size.īronk said he decided to make a keyboard because he is a nerd. Bigger mills can rotate material and move it in other ways. The two mills in the Cougar Shop of the Engineering Teaching and Research Laboratory only move material on the X, Y and Z axes. The process of designing and building the keyboard was particularly difficult because of the mills available for cutting out the pieces, Bronk said. The keyboard Bronk designed and built is made from several materials, including aluminum, carbon fiber and tantalum. Gus Bronk, senior mechanical engineering major, won an international competition in September for designing and building his own computer keyboard.