Gentlemen

Many thanks for the informative and helpful suggestions. I feel more
enlightened already.

To business;

Re Ed Huntress: Sounds like an excellent person to get in touch with.
Any contact info for him?

Re used: not an option for educational institution purchasing

Re cnc machine: what we're looking for is a cnc router. Examination of
relevant websites (www.shopbottools.com) reveals that the price is
unfortunately closer to what axolotl says. However, something like
this (http://www.instructables.com/id/How-...hree-Axis-CNC-
Machine-Cheaply-and-/) seems like a good start and will probably be a
good fallback position if, as I suspect, we conclude that we are
biting off more than we can chew.

checking out other schools - an excellent suggestion, but not
entirely certain it's in our timeframe. Will let everyone know by next
week.

Still wondering if there are any brands I should reject out of hand.
Given my lack of relevant experience I need some way to eliminate
obviously unsuitable bids.

Also, are there "desktop" versions of any of this stuff for relatively
small work?

Again, many thanks to everyone for their intelligent and useful
suggestions.

Joseph Stavitsky
Secretary
DaVinci Robotics club
Passaic County Community College