I took the week off from work this week to burn up some excess PTO time, and I’ve been working on the truck and doing some small house projects to relax. On Wednesday, Jen and I signed up to be chaperones for a class trip Finn’s school was taking to the local community college and then to the NSA’s National Cryptologic Museum. I wasn’t expecting much out of the college visit, but because this trip was organized by the graphic design/IT/CompSci teachers, they took us through the fabrication labs first and then up to the CompSci classrooms. I was thrilled to learn they’ve got an entire program focused on machine tool training.

The first room they took us through was lined with CNC machines, and the professor explained how they start with the math and programming, then move up to training on the machines. We then entered a second lab lined with Bridgeport lathes—there were maybe 15 of them—where they do hands-on training.

Down the hall is another lab with 3D printing machines—not the consumer grade stuff I’ve played with, but multi-process industrial units that do resin, powder, and plastic. And they mentioned that they’re putting in another lab in the summer to do more 3D processes.

It’s not cheap; I’d love be able to go through the entire course for a certificate, but that would cost many dollars. Individually, though, some of the courses are very affordable and are offered at convenient times after work hours.

The Cryptological Museum was fascinating. There’s a ton of stuff there to look through, including the machine that used to make and decode the nuclear launch codes, several Cray supercomputers, and a pair of original Enigma machines you can actually use to decode messages. I read a lot about Enigma when I went through my Neil Stephenson phase, and vaguely understood how the machines worked through his descriptions, but it was another thing entirely to be in front of them, see some of the rotors disassembled, and to see the American version of the Bombe, designed by Alan Turing and built to break the code on a daily basis. The math is mind-boggling but the physical machinery made it much more understandable. We were  also happy to see they’re still highlighting the unsung women and people of color who were instrumental in breaking codes up to and during WWII.