Assignment 2: Liz Dolinar

Design process: protecting/enclosing egg, absorb impact of crash

Design process: Rhino, friction fit "pegs" to secure framework

Assembly: 3D printed parts friction fit

Assignment 1 | Amy Rosen

Some of the most valuable lessons that I learned from this project were definitely how to use a caliper correctly and how to feel confident using the laser cutter.  I learned that, oftentimes, the laser cutter time slots will all be taken but people may not actually be using those slots, so you should always be standing by if you need time.  Also, when using the laser cutter, it is best to be prepared: for instance, on this particular assignment, having a few sizes of the nut and bolt cut out on separate cut sheets was helpful in getting everything to friction fit together (which I never completely achieved, but probably could have if I had to repeat the assignment).  Also, due to my particular design, I did not friction fit the sides together.  If I had tried, I would have needed to miter the acrylic, so I used a more pancake style of assembly, which worked nicely.

Rachel Sung_Project1

Having completed this assignment, I learned the importance of a hundredth of an inch for a friction fit. To best accomplish a tight fit, I realized that it is a necessity to do a test cut before laser cutting the final product.

Kewen Wang_Project1

What I learned:
    With fabrication, your product is almost never what you see in the computer. This is a very tough fact to accept and need mental preparation for. Even though my first attempt at laying out the pieces worked with each dimension exact, screw and bolt did not fit. I found this strange and had to sand down the connection to make it fit. I also had to offset the bolt into the box more than planned because the screw was moderately rusted. Also, I learned that super glue, at least the brand I used, create fumes that hung on to the sides when the box is enclosed. This gave the clear box an uneven frosted glass look. These problems I ran into taught me that material and joinery play a huge role in fabrication. Even if it looks beautiful when rendered on the computer, the object in physical material might not give the same effect.

Kirk Newton_Project 1

What I Learned

I learned a many things over the course of this assignment, but one of the most important things impressed upon me was the importance of having everything worked out and iterated before the dFAB time slot. The time spent physically in front of the laser cutter is actually the least important aspect of lasercutting an object. Before you cut, make sure that you took the kerf into account. Make sure that you have multiple iterations/variations of the final product before you hit print, so that when something goes wrong, you have a contingency plan. One hour is a lot less time than it seems it should be.

Aileena Gray_Project 1

  

 

                                                       

What I learned:

The best way to know the ACTUAL kerf is to test it. Also I made to mistake of scaling down my pieces to test a few of them (to see if they'd fit together), but I didn't take into account that the thickness of the acrylic didn't scale down with it. The test pieces were useless because the think material didn't fit into the scaled groove.

Sam Day: Assignment 1

I learned a lot of important tips and tricks throughout the process of this assignment. First, be smart about laser cutting. Besides inconveniences with time slots, try as much as possible to create iterations of your design. I did not do this and wish I did.  Varying the power and speed of the laser cutter changes the outcome of the acrylic; too much power or a little too slow in speed can result in melting the plasticized material. Because of the issues with laser cutting, my craftsmanship struggled -- I would complete this project much more efficiently and cleanly if repeated.

assignment1-CHANG LIU

This time I learned the importance of test priting. At first, I ignored the thickness of the board, so each 2 parts just cannot fit together. Then I measure the thinkness and adjusted the notches. Later the problem came to that the bases of the bolt and nut cannot be fitted into the hole I left for them, even though I carefully measure the width of the bolt and nut. Later, I scaled 2 holes several times to be smaller and finally my bolt and nut could fit in them.