Cutting Edge: ARHS Spends $25,000 Gift on CNC Mill

The following article, “Cutting Edge: AHRS Spends $25,000 Gift on CNC Mill” by Liam Whitcomb, appeared originally in The Graphic, on December 29, 2025. It is reposted here with permission.

In the fall of 2023, Eric Swanson, an ARHS (‘78) and UMass (‘82) alum and innovator reached out to the ARHS administration and proposed a whopping $25,000 donation to the ARHS engineering department, to be spent as they wished to support students’ development.

This donation was coordinated by Engineering Department Head Nathaniel Woodruff, who noted that, despite a few roadblocks to receiving the funds (due to public schools lacking a pipeline for donations), ARHS finally processed it a full year later, in November of 2024–with open arms and heaps of gratitude. “[Eric Swanson] is an amazing individual,” said Woodruff.

Swanson, who was featured in a news story about his donation in The Graphic last year, was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation (NMTI) by President Joseph Biden in 2023. The money he donated to ARHS is set to be spent on a $23,000 Tormach 770M CNC (computer numerical control) milling machine, a powerful mill that will move the engineering department “into the modern era.” A CNC mill is a piece of machinery that uses subtractive manufacturing, meaning that it will remove material, and essentially carve out necessary components from either wood or metals. 

ARHS already has a CNC mill, but it is much smaller and is only able to be used on wood. The new CNC mill will allow for the creation of metal parts. This allows ARHS students and teachers to precisely create custom and repeatable, gears, parts for robotics, and so much more.

Woodruff also had a lot of involvement in the creation of the new class, Advanced Engineering and Design, where the CNC mill will be a fundamental piece of equipment to create components previously impossible. “We have student projects where we cannot do things by hand to the level of tolerance that we need to make these parts,” said Woodruff. 

Modern manufacturing involves a lot of heavy machinery and this CNC mill allows for ARHS to stay cutting-edge in its engineering offerings. “It’s what differentiates a real advanced manufacturing lab and a hobbyist lab,” Woodruff said. “I mean you can have 3D printers and laser cutters, but when you’re talking about an advanced manufacturing lab, I don’t know that you can call yourself one until you have a CNC [Mill].” 

Other options that the engineering department looked at included higher-end laser cutters, a CNC lathe, and even a water jet cutter. “[However] we have access to a lot of things over at UMass, so that’s also an advantage,” said Woodruff.

In the past, students have been extremely helpful throughout the entire process of setting up and calibrating machines. Last year, then-senior Tychon Tkachenko Coggeshall-Burr got involved with a smaller-scale, wood-only CNC mill. “I was requested to help work on the machine during my ALP time with Mr. Fabel,” Tkachenko said. “I was a TA for his Robotics class but didn’t have much to do when help in class wasn’t needed.”

Tkachenko’s experience setting up the machine was a place to learn about it and help out already busy teachers. “I found it to be fun,” said Tkachenko. “It was a great project to keep me occupied and it wasn’t too difficult.” For the new CNC mill, the construction is too complex and the students’ role will be as guinea pigs, helping to get both themselves and teachers familiar with the machine software.

Prior machines have been funded by something called the Carl Perkins Grant, a federal grant that schools apply for and are not guaranteed to get. ARHS has been lucky enough to receive it annually but this donation from Swanson has allowed our school to spend far more than they previously have.

Woodruff described being able to use a CNC mill as thrilling. “It’s exciting,” he said. “We will be able to work towards something great.”