What I learned from this assignment is that it will take some time and experience to be able to determine what settings are needed to yield what you have in mind.  Geetanjali, Zoe, and I experimented with many different speeds and powers and, while it may have taken us three separate reservations in the laser cutting room, found combinations that worked quite well.  Along the way, however, we did have some drawbacks.

We chose to do our first cut on an acrylic material.  Instead of using the keychain to extrapolate suitable powers and speeds for engraving and cutting, we used the one meant for the SEA laser.  We quite quickly noticed that something was wrong because the laser itself was moving not so quickly.  With the speed we inputted, it may have taken until now to finish cutting.  We stopped the process and soon realized where we had gone wrong.

 

After getting it rolling again with appropriate inputs, we were quite excited.  I don’t think any of us could really see properly for the next few hours due to looking directly at the laser.  I caught Zoe and Geetanjali in action doing so:

 

We observed that in order to cut out the outline of the owl logo, we would have to ungroup the outline path from the paths within the owl itself.  In attempting to solve this problem, we ended up applying a cut to almost every line in the owl on one and failing to get all the necessary lines in the next.

All in due process, once we became more familiar and had printed a good logo, we had leeway to experiment. Here are our refined final products: