During the summer of 2015, Jonathan Barnes and Kim Kirchman (SPC Clearwater Faculty) built two X-Carve CNC routers to teach students about digital fabrication technology.

These pieces of equipment are computer controlled routers that cut wood based on lines designed on the computer in Adobe Illustrator.  The machines are open source, upgradable, modifiable, and will be used in the Design 2 curriculum at the Clearwater Campus.  We  want to ensure that our design students have a strong digital fabrication technology experience before they transfer to a University to complete their Bachelor’s degree.

Learn more about St. Petersburg College’s Arts & Entertainment program.

Digital fabrication technology and design are becoming more mainstream in studio art curriculum, so for the fall semester of 2015, Kirchman had her Design 2 students work in groups to design, and build, a chair.  The parameters of the assignment were aesthetics, construction, comfort, and teamwork.

The design students were broken into groups of three, and set forth designing their chairs.  Most had no experience using Adobe Illustrator, hand or power tools, or CNC routers.  Through countless hours of design, cutting, problem solving and teamwork, they constructed 9 chairs- one for each student.  There were many challenges along the way, the CNC’s proved to have steep learning curves and there were some miscalculated and inaccurate cuts.  We went back to the drawing board a few times, but that is the design process,  and the students solved the problems, and came up with a great design for a chair.  Here are a few pictures.

Design 2 is offered at the Clearwater Campus in the fall and spring semesters.  ART 1203C meets 9:30 am – 12:10 am Monday and Wednesday with Kim Kirchman.