For my metal project, I chose to create a Longhorn logo in honor of my family’s ties to the University of Texas at Austin—several relatives, including one of my parents, attended UT. Additionally, given that I’ve spent my entire time in the United States living in Texas, the design felt personally meaningful. To start, I downloaded the AI file from Canvas and used Adobe Illustrator to trace a Longhorn image I found online. Once the design was finalized, I proceeded with plasma cutting the metal pieces.

I then proceeded to angle-grind the rough edges and sandblast my pieces. See before and after below:

Following this process, I spray-painted my pieces orange to represent the traditional UT colors. When it came to spray painting, I aimed to achieve contrasting textures on each side of the piece. My goal was to overpaint one side to create a textured, wrinkled effect while keeping the other side smooth. However, due to time constraints, I placed the wrinkled side on a paper platform to dry, and some of the paper adhered to the paint, resulting in an unexpected, camouflage-like pattern. Rather than restarting the process, I decided to embrace this unique effect and incorporate it into the final design.

 

Cost analysis

Cost Category	Cost Type	Cost	Total Price	Source	Quantity	Total
Materials	Metal piece	$0	$0	OEDK Machine Shop	N/A	$0
Materials	Spray painting colors ( orange)	$3.00	$3.00	Home Depot	3	$3.00
Materials	Spray painting (gloss finish)	$5.00	$5.00	Home Depot	1	$5.00
Labor	Plasma Cutting Operator	$30.00/hr	$30.00	Steel Supply LP Plasma Cutting Houston	1 hr	$30.00
Labor	Prototyping Engineer (You!)	$20.00/hr	$20.00	My rate	2 hrs	$40.00
Overhead	Facility Cost (Machine Time)	$0	$0	OEDK Machine shop	15 min	$0
Overhead	Quality Control	$12.00/hr	$12.00	Reddit.com	1 hr	$12.00
Design	Engineering and Development	$20/hr	$60.00	Your own rate	3 hrs	$60.00
	GRAND TOTAL = $150