assignment: To construct a press-fit kit using either the laser cutter or the vinyl cutter. details: For this project I developed three designs. The first, and most straightforward, was a simple 3D press-fit construction kit using a single primitive shape. I designed the shape in OODraw without introducing any additional processing tollerance under the assumption that I could make the necessary adjustments in the cam.py application. My intial attempt, using colored 1/8" acrylic and the recommended settings proved ill-fitting. On my next iteration, I increased the contour offset from .00 to .01 and the pieces seemed to fit together well. When I took the shapes home and tried assembing them though I discovered that there was more variablity in the shapes than I had expected, resulting in a number of broken pieces. I returned to the lab and cut more pieces with roughly the same result. It was only upon inspection of the burn patterns on the cut pieces that I realized that the material was warping during cutting, resulting in the variation I saw in my shapes. Fortunately I had enough well-fitting shapes to construct the simple model depicted below. In general though it seems that acrylic tends to warp under laser cutting and some measure might need to be taken to ensure that the acrylic remains flat during cutting. -> OODraw .sxd file of construction kit My next design was a press-fit acrylic bike chain. The idea was to introduce rotational motion into an object built from 2-D pieces. With any luck I'll get this thing cut in the next few hours. -> OODraw .sxd file of chain My final design was a belt, again exploring the idea of introducing free rotation into an object built up entirely from 2-D peices. Additionally, this belt would include a crude latching mechanism the functioning of which will depend upon the flexiblity of the arcylic material. -> OODraw .sxd file of belt