VANCOUVER, BC – A team of  students at the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Advanced Wood Processing has released an educational “video game” on the basics of CNC technology and tooling. It can be downloaded for free at learncnc.org.

The application allows users to explore a virtual machine shop to learn about topics related to the electrical and mechanical components of CNC machines, as well as tool design, physics and metallurgy. It uses an interactive 3-D environment to teach 3-D concepts such as tool angles. The content is supported by pictures, graphics, videos, 2-D animations and 3-D animations.

The original concept was proposed by Richard Hewitt, a recent grad student of UBC’s Wood Products Processing program, and Robert Shum, a UBC computer science student. They ultimately hired and managed a team of fellow UBC students to develop the application.