Embedded Files
Chess Club Logo
Steps to create:
The first step was creative planning. I started off my Chess Club Logo by drawing some basic design ideas on my paper, things like the idea of the King piece extruding out of the main circle in the center and creating the illusion that it was partially inside of the circle and partially outside of it. I had some other ideas too like additional pieces or a sword in the King but those were ultimately beyond both my and the CNC machine's capabilities.
Once I had the ideas down on paper, I went into Adobe Illustrator and made my design. I'm not the greatest illustrator user and I put together my project in an overly complicated and not geometrically ideal way. I created a word path and then wrote down some words but I had to go back later and change some things because letters like "D" for example require a small bridge thing to connect the part inside of the outline otherwise it will just fall away.
I got my project into Fusion 360 and started working my way through the checklist with help from Mr. Supiro. I had to at one point delete all of my progress in Fusion 360 because my illustrator design wasn't big enough for the Drillbit which was a major setback but once I got through all of that the toolpath wasn't too difficult. I then had to wait several class periods for the CNC machine to be available but once it was learning how to use the CNC was relatively easy and cutting the rest was quick, as all you really have to do is tape your design down and then subsequently set X, Y and Z axis and you're all good.
The final thing I needed to get through was spray painting my design. I choose a blue and grey spray paint and it wasn't too difficult but was tedious as I had to go over it several times to get the two colors I needed, the sides, and a minor error I made in putting on the tape that would allow me to have two distinct colors that didn't interact directly
What Went Well:
The first step was easily the fastest and the best executed one in my opinion. I had some very good ideas on that initial sketch and I had a clear vision of what I wanted to be doing in my mind which helped speed up the Illustrator steps which really needed a speed boost, in the end, I had something as close to what I had imagined in my mind as I could hope for.
My personal favorite step in this entire project was using the CNC machine to cut out my design, the machine itself isn't too difficult to operate once you figure out how it works, and when I finally figured that out all I was left with was just simply vacuuming up the dust the machine produced.
What Went Less Well:
I completed this project extremely slowly because of a combination of getting distracted when I was supposed to be working and my complete lack of understanding of any of the tools we were using at the beginning. I would have to first learn them, use them, realize I made an error, go back and fix it, and then export that file into another program where the whole process would repeat.
I made countless errors when making my design, such as not doing my letters properly in Illustrator, making my design too small, and exporting the wrong type of file. I was inexperienced with many of the things we did or hadn't used them in a long time which led to many of these mistakes and heavily slowed down my project.
The one thing that I'm not really happy about with my project is the final size. Halfway through the project, I scaled up my entire design to an arbitrary amount that was probably larger than it needed to be which led to my design being significantly bigger than I originally imagined.
What I would do differently:
If I did this project again I would change actually only change one thing about it. Most of the problems I encountered when making this were related to my lack of experience and familiarity with the software being used, and if I were to do this again these problems would be far less substantial and my project would proceed far faster, a goal though would be to rely on Mr. Supiro's assistance less. The one thing about the design I would change is that its size is not what I wanted and if I did this again with more resources or tools I would scale the whole thing down to the size of a pin that could be attached to a shirt, as that is what I wanted originally. Also unfortunately due to a taping error when spray painting there is a small shadow at the bottom, it's not too bad but I would definately be more careful in my taping next time
Images
Top right is the initial skech, top left is the Illustrator design, bottom right is the Fusion360 design, and the bottom left is the final completed design.
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