For this homework, I was challenged to put my knowledge of Adobe Illustrator and operation of the Epilog M2 laser to work in creating six pieces of laser cut plywood to form a press fit box.

First, I started by using the enmarkercase.com website to create the 3D model from 2D drawings. In order to to obtain the dxf file, I customized material thickness variable by measuring the plywood diameter using calipers . I also selected edge finger joints of width 0.75” each to allow for optimal alignment. Finally, I calculated the kerf of the laser cutter using my preferred settings and found it to be 0.04425. I laser cut the provided kerf.ai file with settings 9s, 10f, 100 power on the Epilog M2 laser.

After obtaining the box plan file from enmarkercase.com, I opened it in Illustrator and added my college crest on one face as well as my name, class, and date on another face of the box plan.

However, things began to go wrong when after I laser cut my six box plan pieces, the teeth did not align with each other, and thus did not form a finger press fit box.

I suspected that I miscalculated the kerf and, using the kerf measurements and laser cutter settings provided by a classmate on the Groupme, (0.008 kerf, laser settings: 4s, 10f, 100p) I created a new box plan in enmarkercase.com, customized in Adobe Illustrator (remembering to use the shape builder tool), and laser cut them with the new settings. This yielded a press fit box that fit perfectly with cleanly etched writing and drawings on two faces of the box.

In total, the final box cost $136 to produce, including labor costs. Next time, I will be more careful about my use of excess materials and I used half of two plywood sheets, leading to unnecessary waste.

Cost Type	Cost	Price	Source	Quantity	Total
Materials	4×4 1/4” birch plywood sheet	$29.88	HomeDepot.com	2 pieces	$59.76
Labor	Laser cutting Operator	$8.50/hr	Self	30 minutes	$4.25
Prototyping Engineer (You!)	$8.50/hr	Self	3 hours	$25.5
Overhead	Facility Cost (Machine Time)	$10/hr	Epilog M2 laser	30 minutes	$5
Quality Control	$2.50			$2.50
Design	Engineering and Development	$10	Self		$10
Iterations	N/A			$0
Misc.	Waste and Scrap	$28.99 (left half of both plywood pieces untouched)			$28.99
Total					$136