For this homework, I decided to do the beginner track, where I would be simply be laser-cutting the box form and engraving my name and college crest.

First: I set up my shapefile. I made sure to measure the the wood on hand with a pair of calipers, I found that the wood was about 0.2 in on all sides. I went to makeabox.io and used the following settings

I then opened this pdf in Adobe Illustrator, moved the box sides around to take up a little less space and waste less material. Then added my college crest and my name / info.

 

From there, I went to the laser cutting machine, I wanted to use the larger Epson Fusion Pro machine, but another student was already using the machine, however, they had the machine in good working order, so, I decided to wait and piggy-back off of their settings and set-up work, rather than set up the other machine. Their engraving pass went well, but their vector cut pass required multiple passes to cut through the entire piece, so, I slowed down the vector cut pass when it came time to cut my box. My settings are as follows:

Vector Cut:

Power: 100%  |  Speed: 10%  |  Frequency: 10%

Engraving:

Power: 100%  |  Speed: 50%

 

The cutting process went as expected, and cut through on the first pass. From there, I took the pieces and tried to assemble them together, but some of the didn’t seem to fit together, so I went downstairs to file down the edges a little, so I wouldn’t need to force the pieces together too badly.

If I was to do redo this project, I would add more engravings to the sides as well as taking a look at the Lovett crest engraving, in which the stags on the sides are barely visible.

Cost Analysis:

Machine Time: 0.5 hours @ $25.00 per hour = $12.50

Materials: (12″ x 8″) 96 in² @ $0.02 per in² = $2.00

Labor: 1 hour @ $15.00 = $15.00

Total: $29.50