Starting to weed excess vinyl from the sticker
The sticker before weeding
Sticker after all excess vinyl removed
Trimmed and ready-to-use sticker
This week focused on exploring computer-controlled cutting techniques. My journey began with designing a vinyl sticker. I wanted to make a dinosaur, but I felt that a simple dinosaur might be too plain. To make it more whimsical, I found a PDF of an ankylosaurus and added a small tophat sticker from Canva to its head. This simple addition gave my design a playful personality. Once the design was ready, I downloaded the PDF and used the pre-set vinyl cutting system in the EDS lab to bring my idea to life.
After completing the sticker, I moved on to my first parametric design project. I wanted to create small, functional pieces and a way to store them efficiently. I designed a box with four identical sides and a base that fit together seamlessly, and square pieces that could be assembled into a variety of shapes. Initially, I wasn’t fully comfortable with setting precise dimensions in Onshape, so Anthony helped me adjust the sizes to make sure everything would fit properly. Once the design was finalized, I took it to the laser cutter to cut out the pieces.
Later in the week, I experimented with etching techniques. I created cardboard cutout music notes from an image I found online and added personalized birthday messages using Inkscape. This was a fun way to combine creative design with practical laser cutting and etching skills, and it felt rewarding to see my friends enjoy the results.