For the laser project we had to create a notebook, a water bottle, and a thingiverse project that has 3 dimensions that we cut from a 2 dimensional board. So I made my 3 sketches of what I wanted to do and look for.
For the water bottle I wanted a picture of the characters going all the way around the water bottle with the shows logo around the bottom.
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For the notebook I wanted to do a tessellation with it saying property of Joey Thompson on the front
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For the thingiverse project I wanted to make a chessboard with 3 dimensional pieces.
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First For the notebook I opened up the template notebook which just gives us our dimensions and I put a hexagon in the middle and then kept connecting them to each other on both sides except the very top where the binding would go and where my writing would go. Then I took a white box and cut out the shapes that had made it outside of the constraint box.
So then I took it down to the laser and put in mat board, I measure the thickness and I made sure the image lined up in the cutter. Then I hit print.
The notebook was really simple but the water bottle was very fun. I got a picture off the internet of all the characters of adventure time being next to each other then places them in illustrator then image traced them.
Then I did the same thing to the Logo
Then I used the dial caliper to measure the diameter of the water bottle to know how big I could make the picture. Then Once I had the file done I took it down to the laser cutter. For the water bottle we needed something called a rotary jig. This was put in since our water bottle is a circle so it needs to rotate to make the design. Then I had to select that there was a rotary jig in the print setting and then again I clicked print.
Last but not least the chess board. For this one I got a pre-made design off of thingiverse so I was able to immediately take it down to the laser. First I made the board. I had it engrave the squares and the letters and numbers for the rows and columns and then cut it out.
Then it was time for the pieces. For this I just cut out 2 sets of chess pieces because I plan on staining the wood for one set to get the different colors so you know whose piece is whose.
I learned a lot in the individual laser project and it happens to be my favorite machine. I think that the wide range of materials you can use is crazy because if you look at the list outside of what we use in class you can use so much. Another thing I learned is how the rotary jig works which is an interesting concept and I wonder what other circular things I would need to use it for. In the end I mainly learned that the laser cutter can be used to cut very precise pieces in 2D that you can put together in 3D in much less time than maybe a 3D printer.