META24 WORKFORCE LAB · GRADED TO THE CORE · PROJECT-BASED · A COURSE IN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN & MANUFACTURING · MIDDLE SCHOOL · UPPER SCHOOL · GRADE 6–12 · 0.25 CREDIT · META24 LAB COMPETENCIES
Subtractive Manufacturing & Forming
The Course · Subtractive & Forming · in The Fab Shop · Industrial & 3D
4 weeks of The Fab Shop · Industrial & 3D: CNC Machining — Cutting It Away · Laser Cutting — Light That Cuts (and the NEVER List) · Metal Fabrication — Cutting, Bending & Joining Sheet · Injection Molding — Where the Mold IS the Product
The weeks are the course’s own, read from the lab; the catalog pads the last weeks with the capstone and the floor so the course fills a whole term.
THE MIX · HOW MUCH OF EACH CORE SUBJECT THIS COURSE CARRIES · IN ORDER
READING & WRITINGMATHCODING & AITECHNOLOGY & TRADESSCIENCEART & DESIGNHISTORY, GEOGRAPHY & HUMANITIESBUSINESS & ENTERPRISE
The squares are a picture of a course — how much of each core subject its own rooms carry, read from the rooms’ text — never a score of a student. Every course in a lab is graded to the core across the board; the squares say which columns it feeds most.
WHAT YOU WILL BE ABLE TO DO
- Additive builds up; subtractive starts with a solid block and CUTS AWAY everything that isn’t the part
- A laser cutter is the maker-space workhorse: a beam of focused light vaporizes a thin line through wood, acrylic, leather, and paper, driven by the same vector paths as your designs.
- Sheet metal is everywhere — enclosures, brackets, panels, frames
- Almost every plastic thing you own — the phone case, the bottle cap, the LEGO brick — was injection molded: molten plastic forced into a steel mold, cooled, ejected, repeat, thousands of times an hour.
AT A GLANCE · 9 WEEKS
Q1 CNC Machining — Cutting It Away → The floor — The assignments · weeks 1–9
ALSO IN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN & MANUFACTURING · THE FAB SHOP · INDUSTRIAL & 3D
A quarter
9 WEEKS · ONE QUARTERQuarter 1 · CNC Machining — Cutting It Away → The floor
WEEKS 1–9 · IN THIS OFFERINGTHE WEEKS · THE ROOMS EACH ONE OPENS
WK 1CNC Machining — Cutting It AwayTHE COURSE · SUBTRACTIVE & FORMING
Additive builds up; subtractive starts with a solid block and CUTS AWAY everything that isn’t the part. CNC machining is the backbone of real manufacturing — the tightest tolerances, the strongest metal parts.
WK 2Laser Cutting — Light That Cuts (and the NEVER List)
A laser cutter is the maker-space workhorse: a beam of focused light vaporizes a thin line through wood, acrylic, leather, and paper, driven by the same vector paths as your designs.
WK 3Metal Fabrication — Cutting, Bending & Joining Sheet
Sheet metal is everywhere — enclosures, brackets, panels, frames. Fabrication is its own craft: you shear or punch flat blanks, bend them on a brake, and join them by welding or fasteners.
WK 4Injection Molding — Where the Mold IS the Product
Almost every plastic thing you own — the phone case, the bottle cap, the LEGO brick — was injection molded: molten plastic forced into a steel mold, cooled, ejected, repeat, thousands of times an hour.
WK 5–9The floor
The floor: the work is done in the room, logged in the room, kept in My Work.
THE PROJECT · WHAT THE QUARTER IS FOR
The assignments · weeks 1–9
The question. What does The Course ask you to be able to do by week 4?
The make. Every week's assignment and the quiz as practice: CNC Machining — Cutting It Away · Laser Cutting — Light That Cuts (and the NEVER List) · Metal Fabrication — Cutting, Bending & Joining Sheet · Injection Molding — Where the Mold IS the Product …
The evidence. Handed in through The Course inside The Fab Shop · Industrial & 3D, kept in My Work; the Report reads it from there.
A course is a quarter, a semester or a year — nine, eighteen or thirty-six weeks — a project a quarter. Offered as the year, a semester or a quarter, it is the same course seen through a window. A lab is a family: its year, each of its tracks as a course, and its rooms. The evidence is what a student hands in through the room; the Report reads it from there. Nothing in the catalog is a grade.
THE PASS · THIS COURSE AND EVERY OTHER ONE
One pass includes Subtractive Manufacturing & Forming and every course in the catalog. Pick a pass, or enter a school code; checkout stays on this page.