Moving GF from classroom to classroom?

Just got a GF for our school this fall. It is setup in one classroom on a table.
Can it be placed on a sturdy cart with wheels and moved from classroom to classroom?

thanks

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Yes, but connecting the wifi might be less than obvious. Some have reported difficulty in connecting the wifi, especially enterprise type of networks. Most everyone has eventually been successful but to a non-network person it sometimes seems to be, lifting one leg while waiting for a gibbous moon. Moving from one access point to another would likely require a new wifi setup. I’m not particularly knowledgeable in that area so others might have pointers.

edit: Oh, and since the filters have not yet begun shipping the venting setup will need attention.

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Welcome to the forum @trebilsc. I hope everything goes well for setup. There are many topics to assist you on the forum. Just about every issue that could come up has been discussed. Lots of tutorials, trouble shooting procedures.

Good luck with the installation. There are quite a few folks who have Glowforges in the classroom.

As @rpegg mentioned, the ventilation is going to be critical. And consider the noise level. In a classroom it will be noticeable.

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Also, emphasis on “sturdy”. And you may need to do most of the travel lockdown unless you have really smooth floors and no thresholds…

Have fun!

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By “lockdown” I think he means re-installing the important orange bits, so hopefully you have saved those.

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So many things can go wrong. Move the students instead.

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Try it out and see.
Maybe you need orange bits.
Maybe each room needs a custom window insert for venting, and maybe one will do for all classrooms.
Maybe your cart needs 2 casters rigid, and maybe it needs 4.
Maybe your wifi will be a pain, and maybe it will move smoothly.
Maybe it will work great, and maybe you’ll pick a spot and stay.

Either way, school is for learning, so have fun finding out what works best.
I hope the students really enjoy it.

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Thanks for the suggestions. Setup was a breeze and the machine works fine. Venting is presently through a dryer vent in a window.

I teach woodworking, and would love to have students work with the GF, but it is on the opposite end of the building from me and students won’t be allowed to work solo in the room. Also, I am not giving up my little prep time to run projects, so some work arounds will be in order. Potentially, a temp move to my space for a few weeks might work.

Next hurdle is learning software - I know little about photoshop and illustrator and have been told they are a must for creating projects from scratch.

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Not at all. Inkscape is fine (I use that in my laser classes because it’s free & I know they all will have it and the current version). Corel Draw is great and has an excellent educational pricing plan ($100ish). Fusion 360 is also free for education & small businesses but is 3D CAD so more complex.

All have info in the tutorials here.

There are lots of others as well. You just need to be able to get an SVG or PDF out of your software for best effect.

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unless you’re doing photo/bitmap engraves, photoshop is less necessary to learn. you’ll be far better served from learning illustrator.

fwiw, i’ll bet some of your students can teach you the ins and outs of PS/IL.

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Well, I’ve never used either so they’re definitely not musts. Actually, if you had absolutely no design programs available to you or were dead set against learning, you could still do some damage with just a sharpie and Microsoft word and some online conversion tools. It wouldn’t be streamlined or pretty, but you could make it work.

I mean, I wouldn’t recommend that as a process to aspire to but you get the point :slight_smile:

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it will not be necessary to have the students working on (or learning) to build their designs in the wood shop. If you have a computer lab then that would be the place to teach and learn the design programs and come up with each student’s work to cut. These computers do not even have to be hooked up with the Glowforge GFUI, rather I think it better if they are not as only one person can be in it at a time, and I can only Imagine many trying to put up their work at the same time.

Once the work is cut, quite aside from the smoke and noise while it is being cut, then what you have from that point on is Woodworking and usually a fair amount of it, with the usual tools and sawdust which is the very thing you are teaching, with the setup you will need. At that point only will it be useful to have a computer in the room and it could be done with a tablet and a tied in projector so everyone could see what is done, but only the one computer is useful at that point.

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As for software (and a computer lab would be the place for it) I am very much a fan of the Open Source Programs of Inkscape, Gimp, and even Blender as all three are free to have and the only cost is in the learning of them and after all that is what schools are for. Other programs have a much shallower learning curve to accomplish “Something” and they have special deals so they can lock in a population of users, but real skill in the easiest program to learn still takes just as long but only that learning curve is different.

The advantage for the students is also that they can put those free programs on their home computers (if they have them) and continue to learn and do their homework. If they are expected to go out and get a job in industry directly from the school then the software the industry uses is good to learn, but the Open Source software is not lacking in power to accomplish what the expensive software can, even though each free and expensive has bits that none of the others do.

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If your school has any of those blue-topped benches on casters they would work great. You used to see them in labs, but it is my understanding students are no longer allowed to learn by doing actual science stuff so maybe they’ve all been sold off.

As a shop teacher you must teach CAD design, correct? I would think you and the students could convert your CAD files to svgs.

Have fun.

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