G-E-T graduate leaves behind legacy with CNC machine he built from scratch | News | wxow.com

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Brandon Bork recently graduated from Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau High School. Brandon spent much of his senior year in the school's Tech-Ed department working on a special project.

GALESVILLE, Wis. (WXOW) - Brandon Bork recently graduated from Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau High School. Brandon spent much of his senior year in the school's Tech-Ed department working on a special project.

Brandon decided to challenge himself and build a CNC Router. The machine is used to cut designs out of hard materials like wood or aluminum.

"I started with the CAD design right away, designing parts and how they are going to fit together. Once they were designed, we 3D printed them out of plastic first," Brandon explained. "So, once we got everything together, we were able to produce a lot of unique products and I'm sure next year it's going to get a lot of use."

Brandon said he first became familiar with the machine when he used it to build an electric guitar his junior year. Brandon's Tech-Ed teacher, Mr. Ottum, said he knew Brandon was ready for a bigger challenge.

"He had mentioned about building a CNC Router and I thought in the back of my head, I have to figure out a way to fund this," Aaron Ottum said.

That is when the pair heard about a grant opportunity from Ashley Furniture that could bring this project to life. Brandon worked with Mr. Ottum and applied of the $8,000 grant.

"G-E-T's grant application was one of the best we had seen," Vice President of Public Relations for Ashley Cole Bawek said. "It takes a lot of work that goes into a grant application, so you can certainly tell (they) put a lot of time and effort into this."

With that financial boost, Brandon got to work and built a fully functioning CNC router. It is something he hopes will be used in the district for years to come.

"I want to see younger generations kind of work with it and make it their own," Brandon said. "Obviously, I'm not going to be here next year, so we are hopefully going to have freshman and maybe sophomores that are interested and kind of want to put their own spin on it."

"The students that are going to get to use this thing are the underclassmen that are coming up through," Mr. Ottum said. "He's been such an amazing mentor for these students."

Brandon said this project would not have been possible without the help from his teachers.

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