Sorry guys, I couldn’t think of any good puns for this assignment title but I worked on laser cutting a cute box.

When thinking about what pictures to pick, I decided to continue including cats and include Brown’s crest. I wanted to bold the text so it could look a little larger.  After I selected my images, I made sure to adjust all the strokes to be the correct size so it could work properly.

I wanted my box to have a lighter engraving so I decided to do 20 speed and 20 power to obtain that look. When I did my first cut, everything looked good until the laser cutter started going over the engraved elements. I started to get worried since there were larger flames and the wood started to burn (don’t worry I stopped the machine and there were no laser cutters harmed in the process). This confused me a little bit since my numbers were correct. After some reflection (thanks Isabella!!), I realized I was entering the amount in inches instead of so the machine thought I wanted to engrave and then cut.

I decided to reprint these pieces with this new knowledge and edited my own file to correct what was messed up. I was able to reprint these pieces and then assemble my box together.

One thing I learned about these processes is that there is more that goes beyond pressing a button and I definitely learned that more with the water jet cutter (see my next post :p), but I learned some valuable things to keep in mind as I continue my journey through this course.

Here’s the cost breakdown:

Laser cutting fee+ labor: 50 (20 to use, 10/hr for labor)

1/4 plywood 2 by 2 ft: 7.28

Total: 57.28