This week my group started the laser cutting section. Our
first assignment was to create a 3 inch by 3-inch cube with sides that fit
perfectly together using notches and tabs. The medium that we used was Baltic
Birch. The blueprints were created in Adobe Illustrator using the pen tool, the
shape tool, and the shape builder tool.
To create the perfect cube, we
had to do some math to make sure that all of the pieces fit together correctly.
We calculated that the female sides, the sides that the notches were cut out
of, had to be 3 by 3 inches with 1/8th of an inch notches. The male sides, the
sides with the tabs, had to be 2 and 3/4 ths of an inch by 2 and 3/4 ths of an
inch with 1/8th of an inch tabs. The hybrid sides, which had both tabs and notches,
had to be 3 inches by 2 and 3/4 ths of an inch. After we figured out the math
we went to Illustrator to construct the sides. We started by using a 24 inch by
12-inch art board to match the size of the material we would be cutting in the
laser. Then, to make sure that everything was precise, we turned on the grid
and rulers in the software. After creating one of each kind we just copied and
pasted another one so that we would have two of each side. Then we made sure
that the stroke was set to .0001 inches to make sure that the laser would cut
it. Finally, we saved the document as a Illustrator C6 legacy file so that we
could open it on the computer connected to the laser.
After my cube was all cut and finally
assembled this was the final result.
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