Key Chain

Summary of Key Chain Project

The first project we did was to make a key chain. I engraved a picture of my dog Tucker on the front and put a sticker of the sunset. I learned how to use Adobe Illustrator, the Epilog laser cutter, and the Roland TrVis vinyl printer to create my project. In this write-up below I will go through the steps of creating my key chain and sticker.

Materials

Adobe Illustrator
Computer
Epilog laser Cutter
Key chain ring
Wood board
Roland TruVis vinyl printer

Creating

I started my project by finding a good idea for my keychain. I chose a picture of my dog because he is very cute and I thought it would look good on my keychain. After I chose a picture of my dog I made a blank artboard in Adobe Illustrator that was 4x4 inches then inserted the image by selecting file in the menu bar at the top of my computer screen then pressing place. I then zoomed out and made my image smaller so it could fit inside my art board. I then embed the image by pressing the embed image on the right panel on the side of my screen. I selected the pen tool and started to outline the picture of my dog. I then moved on to the detail of my dog's face, such as his eyes, nose, and the shapes that his fur create on his face to create some dimension in my image. The last thing I did was add a small hole for my key chain ring in one of my dog's ears. The image on the left was a picture of what my project looked like when I fist started and the image below is the final product before I printed it out.

To tell the laser cutter what to cut and what to engrave I selected the lines I wanted to be cut and made everything 0.001. I got a school computer that has the window system on it because the laser cutter only works when used with windows. I then pressed control "p" and selected the correct settings for the laser cutter and then sent the print job to the Epilog laser Cutter. The last image on the left is what my scene looked like before I sent it to the laser cutter.

Laser Cutting

Once I sent my project to the Epilog laser Cutter I went to the printer and put a piece of wood in the upper left corner. I then closed the lid and selected my project on the screen. before I pressed start I turned on the fan that sucks the smoke out of the laser cutter then I presses start. The image to the right is what my project looked like when almost done in the laser cutter

Sticker Printing

When I was finished laser cutting my image of my dog onto the wood the next step was to make a sticker to go on the back on the wood. I first chose a picture of a sunset that I thought would look good. I went back to Adobe Illastrot and made a copy of the outline and the hole of my image. I made a new artboard and pasted the lines in. I then mirrored the image with a bottom on the right side of my screen on the properties menu. I then went into library and selected my lines then made them pink which is how the sticker maker knows where to cut. I then saved the file to Google Drive then shared my doc with Mr. Supiro. The Roland TruVis vinyl printer prints a big piece of paper at once so our whole class could print out all of our stickers at once. The images to the left are how I shared my sticker PDF with Mr. Supiro and of the stickers being printed.

Final Product

Front of key chain

Back of key chain

Refletion

I liked this project a lot and I thought it was a good first project. Somethings that went well for me were printing the sticker and making a good outline and deatial for the laser cuter. Some challegned I faced were my computor wounlt let me use adobe on it for the first few classes and it took mulitple tryes to get the laser cutter right. I would do this project again but I would choose a different image to create and put more deatials in and choose a different sticker to put on the back

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