Week Three.
Computer-Aided Designs.
Computer-Aided Designs.
This Week we have learned about the 3 C's in Fab Academy called "Computer Controlled Cutting", I used Inkscape for designing and I turned the file to a .eps for the vinyl cutter and a pdf for the laser cutter.
There where 2 assignments this week. The first was to print something using the vinyl cutter and the second one was print and to document a press fit construction kit using the laser cutter.
I wanted to keep it simple this time, I recently got a new computer and I wanted a cool sticker to go with my vibe, I've been in a science faced and this sticker fits me very well. I grabed an image from google, I imported it to inkscape and used the "tracebitmap" tool, and the way it works it traces the image "black and white" are preffered, and turns it into a bitmap, a bitmap in my definition is map with cordinates that machines like the vinyl cutter use to cut.
I didn't used the vinyl cutter at As220, I actually printed it at Fab Newport. The printers are different I used ?put name of printer? and this printer took a few more steps to print. Instead of leaving the files as .svg I had to transform them into .eps files so I could use the software that the machine is connected.
The second part of this assignment was to press-fit a construction kit using the laser cutter, It was really challenging to figure out what I wanted to do, I wanted the final product to represent something about my potential final project. Well I kept it simple, a 4x5 box. You might think its simple dull object... WRONG!! This has been the most challenging i've been for a while and I was pushed to problem solve. To be able to design this I used the software Inkscape. Another part of the design that was really important was to measure the tickness of the cardboard and it was .125 in. This was the most important step of the process because if I get the perfect size of tickness when the joist of the box come together it will fit perfectly, so there's chances to fail or success.
I used the Laser cutter at As220, and this wasn't a challenge, I used one before at FabNewport. The thing that I love about laser cutters is the smell from the burnt wood or cardboard, also I like how perfect it cuts, even though is a laser it produces really good lines, but that depends on the material too.
I'm happy of the way it ended up looking, the joist fit very well but the only thing that is wrong that the cardboard wasn't that good so some of the joist in one side started to fade . But overrall the project was a sucesss.
A re-cap of this week was to learn to use the machines at the lab and design it using open software. Using the vinyl cutter you could cut out amazing stickers, T-shirt desings, and 2D design. The laser cutter is used to cut out wood, cardboard or even aluminum, you could cut out as 2D or create 2D designs and assamble them to represent a 3D shape.