Engaging Young People in the Expressive Opportunities of Digital Fabrication Through Craft-Oriented CAM-Based Design

Digital fabrication can be a rich creative domain for young people. Most youth-oriented digital fabrication activities focus on CAD, where practitioners design solid geometry. Professional designers frequently bypass CAD and instead design at the level of the machine toolpath. This CAM-based design process allows for material exploration, unique textures, and complex shapes. We recognize young people’s role as designers and seek to adapt professional digital fabrication techniques to meaningful youth design activities. We present a youth-oriented CAM-based design curriculum consisting of 1) hands-on activities that introduce machine toolpath concepts, 2) a learner-oriented CAM software interface that scaffolds digital toolpath creation, and 3) project-oriented design activities that integrate CAM-based design and manual craft for ceramics and textile production. We evaluated our approach through a workshop with twelve high school students. Our research shows that young people can skillfully apply CAM-based design and manual craft to create functional and personally meaningful artifacts.