Car maze

Source Photo

This is a photo I took of a 4 wheeling trip I took with my brother in our 2003 land cruiser. I thought it would make an interesting maze.

Outline

I imported the photo into illustrator and traced the outline using the pen tool

Offset Outline

I offset the outline inward to create walls, channels, and similar features. I offset half an inch for the border, an eighth of an inch for ledge for the acrylic to rest on, half an inch for the channels, and an eighth of an inch for the walls

Clean Up

I used a combination of the pen tool, shape tool, and shape builder to refine the walls and channels. The aim of this was to get rid of awkward spots and fill the space inside the maze efficiently. Unfortunately I could not add barriers and gaps in illustrator because it kept giving all kinds of crazy, overlapping compound paths.

Into Fusion

In order to get my line work into fusion I exported the adobe file as a DXF. I then went into fusion and created a sketch. After that I imported my DXF file and moved the sketch to where I wanted it.

Extrude

I took the whole shape and extruded it downwards to match the thickness of the wood. I then took the first offset and extruded it down by the thickness of the acrylic. Finally I took the outline of the channels and extruded it down an eighth of an inch away from the bottom of the wood

Barriers and Gaps

To solve the problem of the compound paths I decided to create my barriers and gaps in fusion. I created separate sketches for the walls and gaps using the line tool. I did an extrude for each sketch. the gaps were a cut and the barriers were a join. After this I was left with a finished model.

Tool Paths

I created two 2d pockets. One for the acrylic to sit on and one for the paths the ball travels through. I also made a 2d contour to cut out the outline. all paths were made with 8th inch step downs to avoid breaking the bit.

Milling

the piece was cut out on the cnc mill using a 1/4 inch down-cut bit. On the first attempt the z-height wasn't set correctly so the bit didn't cut all the way through.

Acrylic

I used an offset plane and the outline of the acrylic shelf to create a sketch of the shape of the acrylic. I added 1/8th fillets to all the inside corners because thats the smallest radius our bit could cut.

I exported the sketch as a dxf and imported it into illustrator. I then cut out test pieces out of cardboard to ensure the piece would fit. After a few tests in different sizes I found one that was good enough. I added a start and finish engraving then cut my acrylic out on the Epilog fusion pro. It didn't quite fit so I did some sanding with the orbital sander.

Final Product

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