Mastercam Partners with NASA HUNCH Program

CNC Software, Inc. (Tolland, CT), developers of Mastercam, a leading CAD/CAM software, is partnering with NASA HUNCH – High Schools United with NASA to Create Hardware – in an effort to bring high school students new educational experiences with NASA projects. They will be providing licenses of Mastercam to select schools to use, as long as they are participating in the HUNCH program. While there are about 150 schools participating in the program, Mastercam is specifically working with those schools focused on precision machining.

“We are proud to support HUNCH and its efforts to bring high school students new educational experiences with NASA projects,” said Peter Mancini, the education product owner at CNC Software. “This is a unique program. We are glad to be a part of students fabricating real-world products for NASA as they apply their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics skills, as well as learning to work in teams and think creatively.”

HUNCH originally started 16 years ago with a handful of schools producing hardware training items for the International Space Station. Now it has grown to over 150 schools across the country, not only producing hardware for flight and training, but branching out to design projects, sewing flight and training articles, and an Astronaut Culinary Challenge. Over 20,000 students have participated, with 94 percent moving on to pursue undergraduate degrees. “We are excited about the capability that Mastercam brings to our schools,” said Blake Ratcliff, the program manager for NASA HUNCH. “This partnership will benefit both students in their academic pursuits and NASA in the products that will be generated as a result.”

“Some of our best customers, such as Lincoln Tech, Warren Tech, and Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, are already a part of HUNCH, and we look forward to introducing our software to other great schools involved with this innovate program,” added Mancini.

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