Design the Board
Design the board was one of the hardest components of this project simply because it was our first time doing such a project and we were not aware of the capabilities of all the machines in the lab. To get inspiration for our design we used sites such as Esty, Amazon, and eBay. For my final project, I wanted to dedicate this board to my mom because she is my biggest supporter and I would be nowhere without her. I decided to make a charcuterie board, which a pocket cut for olives and an engraving of my last name "Hathiram" at the bottom.
Using this as a reference image I started to design my files in Corel Draw. After test cuts, which were done by our teachers, we learned that profile cuts were not recommended because they would reduce the size of our wood drastically. The bit on the CNC machine was 1/2 inch in size. This was important to keep in mind while designing because the cut would already lose 2 inches of the board.
Due to this, I decided to change my design and just cut a circle pocket cut which would store olive in it. This was a smart decision because it was less time-consuming, as well as I saved a lot of wood resulting in my charcuterie board being bigger and prettier. I uploaded the design into Aspire. Aspire is software that is used in the lab, to utilize the CNC. I made the appropriate changes to the measurements and tool path to a pocket cut, which is going to be .75 inches. Once everything looked fine and it was checked by one of the teachers in the lab I uploaded the file as "ShotBot (inches)."
