Aijia Yao
MIT EECS • HTMAA 2025
Week 2 – Parametric Design
September 2025
This week was mainly about CAD, which is critical for parametric design.
What I Did
- Finished the construction of the webpage for documentation.
- Vinyl cut for the group logo of my research lab.
- Since "Time" is the theme for my designs this semester, I deisgned a cardboard pen holder inspired by TARDIS(from doctor who).
- Had great fun playing with fusion as always:)
Vinyl cut
Notes for vinyl cut
- Tuning the printing size by changing (psi) of image.
- High resolution image gives best/smooth edge.
- Here is the logo for Prof.Palacios' group (inspired by MOSFET symbol) designed with my labmates:
Laser Cut
Design and prepare
- After the printing from group assignment, I measured the cardboard thickness for design specs.
- Sketching the TARDIS(Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) with dimensions specified in Fusion.You can find the .dxf files for this design
- here.
- An useful trick to avoid overlayed design is to extrude the paattern first and then project that to a seperate sketch.
Notes for laser cut
- Check the unit of the dimension,e.g. inch and mm.
- Be careful with the thick lines, avoid burning harzard!
- Import the design, instead of opening the dxf file.
- For finer feature, the speed can be increased, just cut twice.
- When multiple patterns are imported together, need to ungroup to edit the stroke to hairline in inkspace.
- I used two different setting of laser to cut the cardborad:
- For dimension smaller than 4 mm, 16% speed
- For larger dimension, first 16% speed + second 40%
- (Power is always 100% for vector cutting)
Recording of the cutting process
Assembling and decoration
Other Notes
- Hot glue gun was used to connect the top strutcures and strengthen the joint parts.
- For more details of the TARDIS design, I hope to utilize 3D printer later in the class.