Week 2 # - Journal
Ideation
Tell us about your assignment's idea for this week. Why do you care about this idea? What inspired you? (Please include images or links to sources of inspiration)
Our assignment this week is to design and fabricate a desktop mobile phone stand using the laser cutting machine. I was inspired by this desktop organizer on instructables.com .
I was also inspired by the cardboard mobile stand i made at the start of the week session during the Hands on, Mind on activity.
Tool Chain
Which software/machines/materials did you use in the assignment? Why?
For sketching and extruding the design i used Fusion 360. This stand will be made of 3mm plwood, via the laser cutting machine. Then setting up the cutting and engraving parameters on the Laserwork software before sending it to the laser cutting machine. For the laser cutting we used the Laserworks software and the machine was a Morn MT3050D. We used 3mm plywood.
Design/Preparation Process
Explain the design and/or preparation process of your assignment. How did you use the tool or software to design and/or prepare your assignment before fabrication/implementation?
Using Fusion 360 to sketch the different parts of the phone stand. It consists of 2 sides (identical) and 3 other identical parts (top, bottom and back). Adding multiple fixation methods like t-slots for M3 screws and guiding tabs that make the design very sturdy. After sketching all the parts, i extruded them individually then started joining the together. The the design was saved in .dxf before setting up the parameters in the Laserwork software, which turns it into .rld file that can be sent to the laser cutting machine. Amazingly it worked perfectly on the first try. Below are the fully defined designs on Fusion 360.
Back, front and bottom.
Sides.
Fully assembled phone stand model in Fusion 360
Development/Implementation Process
Explain the development/implementation process of your assignment. How did you use the machine/tool to manufacture or implement the design of your assignment?
After i sketched the design on fusion 360 as separate parts, i extruded all pieces to a specific thickness, then i joined them together to make sure everything fits together nicely, which they did. Then i save the design as a .dxf file and opened it via laserwork software to set up the laser cutting parameters. After cutting, i sanded all the faces slightly to remove the burn marks on the plywood then proceeded to assemble it using M3 screws. The guiding tabs we very helpful for quick alignment and setup.
Bottom, back and front in Laserwork.
Sides in Laserwork.
Before assembly
The laser cutting machine
Ladies and gentlemen, i introduce to you the finished product. The phone stand:
Overcoming Challenges
What kinds of challenges or problems did you face while doing the assignment, tutorials, or exercises? How did you solve them? Did you ask for help from an instructor or peer? Please provide a link to the tutorial or article that you used to solve your problem (if any)
The only significant challenge i faced was sketching the t-slots and guiding tabs properly and estimating the overall dimensions for the phone stand. But a few trials and errors made it work at last. I got the dimensions for the tslots and guiding tabs from previous designs that we did the past week. The dimensions for the phone stand were aquired through trying my actualy phone on a paper sketch and through the cardboard phone stand we made earlier.
Final Project
How can you use the skills and knowledge that you've acquired this week in your final project?
This week we got introduced to Fusion 360, which is a powerful tool, a little challenging at first but practice gets you a long way. We had multiple exercises like the miniature rocking chair, the fidget spinner and the wardrobe.
WOW!
What is the coolest thing that you've learned this week? What is something that you will never forget from this week?
Getting into digital sketching is a challenge since it always felt overwhelming but im excited to learn more and more about the software to give me more freedom with my creations.
Weekly Digest [OPTIONAL]
Tell us about any other cool things that you've made this week: in the Hands-on activity, tutorial examples, exercises, or any other cool mini-project that you tried out aside from the assignment.
Title of Media