Not having a lot of (or any) experience designing in Illustrator, I decided to make the beginner version of the assignment. First, I used a template from makeabox.io to make my box, setting my dimensions to 3″x4″x4″. I adjusted the template to account for the thickness of the wood (3/16″) and set the kerf to .015 (I was planning on testing this value and then adjusting if needed). I also added a logo for my residential college (go Brown!) as well as my name, setting the stroke lower so it would engrave and not cut. The Illustrator file looked like this:

Now came to the laser cutter. The laser cutter was unfortunately not working properly at the time I cut my box. It did not fully cut through at 4s (normal speed for the type of wood I was using) or 3s, and eventually mostly cut through at 2s. As I pushed out the pieces, some of the edges broke off, but not wanting to waste even more wood from the failed attempts I was settled with the product since all the pieces fit together.

Here are some images of the final box:

Hopefully, the new laser cutter will help solve these issues (as I know many of my other classmates struggled with getting the laser cutter to cut all the way through the wood). I also chose not to sand the edges, as I liked the contrast between the light and dark areas of the wood.

 

Cost breakdown:

1 piece of wood: $20

Labor: 4 hrs (at $10/hr)

Machine time: 2 hrs ($15/hr)

Total: $90