Assignment
- cut something on the vinylcutter
The Plan
I want to vinyl cut a QR code on a black background and stick it to my laptop. The fun part is the QR code goes to this exact blog post.
Preparing the QR code
I already named this blog post "Vinyl Cutting a QR Code", so the slug will be vinyl-cutting-a-qr-code. Because the base URL for my entire blog is
https://fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/863.25/people/YufengZhao
and the full URL for this blog post is
https://fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/863.25/people/YufengZhao/projects/vinyl-cutting-a-qr-code
To generate the QR code, I used QR Code Monkey. I chose the black background and the white foreground.
The QR code looks like this:
Some extra sauce
My artist friend WTTDOTM(Morry Kolman) is recently setting up a art piece that creates warped QR codes to work as a "sigil" to force people to move a certain way in order to properly scan it. Here's a series of Instagram stories about it.
I want to roughly replicate this effect with vinyl cutting. So I went into Photoshop and created a warped QR code.
Before I go ahead and cut the vinyl, I did some testing to make sure it's really hard to scan upfront and the user has to move their phone camera to a weird angle to scan it.
As you can see, it's really hard to scan it upfront, but once I move the camera extremely close to the screen at a tiled angle, the phone recognizes the QR code.
The final warped QR code looks like this:
Cutting the QR code
I transferred my QR code to Cricut Design Space software and cut it on vinyl.
I grabbed someone's leftover scrap piece of black sticker vinyl to cut the QR code, becuase I care about the environment more than the assignment. I fixed it on the Cricut's sticky cutting mat and pressed the "feed" button to make the cutter take in the vinyl.
Here's the finished cut vinyl:
Peeling the vinyl
I used a tweezer to peal the vinyl off the cutting mat. It's a bit tricky because it's hard to tell which one part of the vinyl needs to be peeled off (i.e. is it the black part or the white part on the QR code?). I'm only supposed to peal off the white part since the vinyl is black. I made a few mistakes where I pealed off the black part, but the fault tolerance nature of the QR code saved me from doing it over again - it still scans!
The final peeled vinyl looks like this:
Applying the vinyl to the laptop
I need a transfer tape to apply the vinyl to the laptop. I apply the transfer tape onto the vinyl and pressing it onto the vinyl bits firmly so that it doesn't come off.
Peeling the transfer tape off the vinyl is a bit tricky because sometimes the vinyl bits do come off.
There were some missing pieces, but again, the QR code's fault tolerance grants me some forgiveness.
The final result looks like this:
Scanning the QR code
Here's a test scan with my phone camera on the laptop sticker:
It works! I mean, it doesn't work upfront, and works at a weird angle! If you successfully scan it, you will be redirected to this exact blog post.
Cleaning up
There are some vinyl bits sticking to the Cricut's cutting mat. I spent 10 minutes painstakingly picking them off with my fingernails. Just trying to be a good citizen of the fabrication lab!
