Adam Edelbi Project 2: Laser Cutter

 1) Process:

    - The first thing that I wanted to do in this project was make sure I had an idea that would be useful to me. I ultimately decided to make a deck box for the card game I play called Magic the Gathering. While mine would not look nearly as good as this, this was the basic purpose of the box I was trying to make. 

    The next thing I did was work through the tutorial for the fusion design, changing the dimensions and shape of the walls and floor to suit my own design. Once I had the fusion design completed, most of the work was already done. I found an online image that I wanted to laser imprint on the front face of the box to label it as a Magic the Gathering deck box. Here is the image I found. 

After imprinting the image, the only thing left to do was take my fusion designs and put them in Adobe illustrator, and from there directly to the last cutter. After everything was cut, I fit all the pieces together, glued a few loose sections, and the box was complete. 

2) Result:

    - I had a few issues with the fusion design, which I found to be the most challenging part of this project. Firstly, when I attempted to extrude the walls and cut them into one another in order to make the grooves, fusion for some reason left a little tab of material at the top of every wall. After figuring out what it was, I had to manually delete those before proceeding. The second and last major issue I had with the project was during the laser imprinting. For some reason the laser imprinter printed the image I wanted very off centered, so much so that I had to redo the imprinting, and make sure it would be more centered this time. I actually left the failed imprinting on the inside of the box. 

3) Reflection:

      - Overall, I think this project was easier, and less work, than the last. The fusion process scared me at first, as the fusion design is 90% of the work for this project. I had to work through the tutorial twice before I was able to make my own design, but once I got the design down, learning what to do in Adobe Illustrator and how to use the laser cutter was a lot easier than I expected. The final product was one I am happy about, and I am glad I got the measurements correct to hold a 100-card deck. This is what the final product looks like with the cards in it! There is a little extra space so that my fingers can easily fit to remove the deck from the box.