The Projects
Our first project was a notebook cover that we designed and put together ourselves. Our next project was a water bottle design that we created. Our last laser project was a 3D object that was cut out on the laser and assembled by us. The 3D designs were found on Thingiverse, a website made for making and sharing different projects made by anyone around the world. My notebook project is a running themed cover with two of the universal running symbols. I made this because I like to run and I didn't have anything like it at home. For my water bottle I found an image online of an anchor and I used that for my bottle design. I chose an anchor because I like being out on the water and I couldn't find any good images for fish or boats so I decided an anchor would be best. For my Thingiverse project I found a very cool reindeer mount design that I recreated in Illustrator and assembled after cutting it.
The Files I Used
The Sketches
How each project was completed
The Notebook
For our notebooks the first step was to create the file and draw each cover for the notebook. Next we added our designs to the front and back covers. I chose a running shoe and the word XC for cross country on the front and a person running with the word running for the back. Next I had to decide what to cut out and what to engrave. I chose to cut out the words and the person and engrave the running shoe. The next step was to cut out the notebook. I put the file into the laser software and cut out the notebook. Lastly we hole punched and bound our notebooks.
The Water Bottle
For the water bottle I used an image from google of an anchor and imported it into Illustrator. I then had to rotate the image 270 degrees so it would engrave onto the water bottle right side up. Then I used the rotary jig and the lase to engrave onto the curved surface. The rotary jig makes the laser engrave on a single line and rotates the surface it is engraving on.
The Reindeer
For my Thingiverse project I chose to make a deer out of mat board. After I found the deer I wanted I downloaded the document off of the website, and made it into an Illustrator file. I then took it over to the laser and cut it out. It turned out great the second time and it fit together great.
Summary
In this rotation we learned much about how to use Illustrator and how to use the laser. It was a large project but well worth all the work we had to put in. I learned how to efficiently use my time and get a lot done in a short time. I have also learned multitasking in this rotation. I learned how to more quickly create illustrator designs, and how to better use my allotted class time.