This week, the assignment was to laser cut panels of a cube that could be press-fit together.

To start, I designed my box using BoxMaker. I made the box 5 in x 5 in x 5 in because I wanted it a little bigger than the 4x4x4 in requirement give. In addition, I wanted more finger edge joints because I thought it would look more fabulous. Of course, I used the piece of wood assigned for the name tags and measured that piece of wood to be 0.1884 inches. I also used the requirements on the doc and measured the kerf to be 0.008 inches. Using all of this information, I put it into the website to give me accurate dimensions for the panels of the box.

Then, I put the box into Adobe Illustrator to add my design. The instructions said to place one’s personal information on the panel and the crest on the other, but I could not find a clear image of my college’s crest. All the pictures provided were extremely blurry. Because of this, I had to make my own rendition of the crest, and to block any signs of imperfections or details I could have missed, I placed it with the words for a more minimalistic look. I also changed the font to something I like better.

After designing the final look in Illustrator, I imported it onto the laptop that connects to the laser cutter to get ready for laser cutting. For the settings, I used:

Frequency: 21 f

Power: 100 %

Speed: 4

After setting up the machine, I ran it through to see if it would fit in the area. Seeing that it did fit the area, I started printing.

After cutting out the pieces, I had 6 sides of the box.

The next step was to see whether the kerf accounted for the discrepancies of the material cut in the laser cutting process. It was necessary to see if my edges would perfectly press-fit together.

Thankfully, I measured the kerf correctly, and none of my pieces were chipped while press-fitting everything together.

Final Product:

Overall, I am pleased with my final product. My etching looked cohesive with the box, and I like the clean look of the small letters and a smaller crest. It puts the rest of the focus on the other details of the box, like the press fit. In the future, I might consider sanding the burn marks, but in this case, I like the rustic feel it gives to the box. Without the burn marks, it might look too dull.

Cost breakdown:

Wood: $5 ($4.16 + Tax + Shipping) Source

Fees: $25 an hour x 1 hour for the machine Source

Labor: $10 x 2 hours = $20

The total cost of the box comes out to about $50