Erica Emig

My name is Erica Emig. My logo is 2 Es because my initials are EE. I put the lines in the middle that represent the lines on a volleyball because I love to play sports such as volleyball. The Es are curved on the outside to form the shape of a circle, which represent a ball for sports like volleyball and basketball. Something I learned during the process of making the logo is how to use Adobe Illustrator and create basic things like lines, shapes, and curves. I also learned how to fill in the shapes, subtract one shape from another, and join to lines together to close a shape. I want to improve on the logo by fixing the top and bottom so there is no angle with the ends of the Es.

My laser cut logo is shown below the design. It turned out successful. I like the size is, it's not too big or too small. I also like how the Es look. I think I would want to experiment with the color of the Es and the lines so that they are cut to a greater depth. I would also make the Es thicker. I also accidentally made it more of an oval shape than a perfect circle. I would want to change that to make it better. Overall, I am happy with how it turned out! Something I learned from the process of cutting it out was that my artboard has to be 3 in by 3 in. At first I had it at 3 pt. by 3 pt. Once I changed that, I also had to change the thickness of all the lines so they would be proportional to the new artboard. Now I know to be cautious of the artboard size- and check to see if it's on pts or inches.

This is the cardboard box I made for the 2 inch box assignment. I was a little rushed with this box, so the craftsmanship wasn't as good as I would have liked. If I did it again, I would have made it neater by cutting more carefully. I also would have been more careful of the instructions of the size. We had to make a 2 in by 2 in box, but I didn't consider the thickness of the cardboard itself, so it was actually a little bigger than 2 inches. I learned a lot during this assignment, like how to cut different materials safely and effectively. I also learned that the pieces all have to be the right size or the box will either not work or look sloppy when you put it together.

This is the other box I made for the 2 in box assignment. I thought this one was easier to make because I made it out of thinner cardboard which made it easier to fit the size restrictions. I used scissors to cut the sides, and I thought that it worked well. I am proud of this box because I took a lot of time to make it look neat and I think it turned out good. It also fit the size requirements pretty well. I learned from this experience that scissors work well on thin cardboard and I also learned that if you take the time to make your project look neat, and pay attention to detail, it will pay off and your project will have good craftsmanship. Overall, I like how this box turned out.

These are my original 12 sketches for my logo (on the left). We had to come up with 12 different ideas that represented ourselves through a small design. I thought it was difficult to come up with 12 unique designs. I found that when I was stuck and couldn't come up with any more, I just repeated a previous design but made slight changes. However, when we were able to get up and look around at other people's designs, I got inspiration from other people's use of certain elements, such as geometry or curly lines. On the right hand side, I chose my 2 favorite designs and drew them bigger and with more detail. The first was my first and middle initials, E and I, inside a volleyball because I play basketball. The second was my first name all lower case sitting on the line in a basketball. This was a difficult assignment but looking back it was helpful for brainstorming my logo.

This is the final logo on paper. I got constructive criticism from other people in order to modify the design into the final. Some of the constructive criticism was to change the I to an E so it would have some symmetry, which I think looks cool. Another idea was to change the line thickness of the Es so there would be contrast between the thick Es and thin volleyball lines. I really like that idea because it adds a lot of dimension to the logo. Later, when we drew our logos on the walls, Mr. D suggested that I should erase the volleyball lines so they were just line segments. This helped because it made the design simpler and there was less going on to look at. I learned from this that modifying your design more and more makes it a lot better, and you have to be patient. I learned that I'm not going to get a perfect design on the first try, I have to keep modifying it and listen to what other's have to say. I also learned that line thickness adds a cool dimension to any design.

This is our board of cardboard prototypes. I thought this was a good project to learn about paper prototypes and the types of them. I think the hardest one was the cone because at first I cut the piece too small. I still couldn't get it perfect because there was a hold at the top. The one I am most proud of is the layering and texture because I came up with the idea of layering triangles so the sides stuck out unevenly and creating texture. I think it is a creative idea for the assignment given. I worked with Daniel on this project which was helpful because we split up the tasks. I think we worked well as a team and this project is a good example of our teamwork. I learned many thinks such as how to curve cardboard on the side of the table, and how to stand pieces up with tabs.

These are the lessons on TinkerCad that I completed during class. These helped me learn the basics of 3-D design on TinkerCad. I thought that the most difficult lesson was the minecraft glasses and the cufflinks. The glasses were hard because there were so many boxes that you had to put into place. It was very time consuming, but in the end I think it looked cool. The cufflinks were hard because I had to use the workplane a couple times and I was confused on what it does. In the future I want to get better at using the workplane. I also want to get better at designing 3-D objects in general.

This is my vinyl cut logo. It was difficult because my original logo that I laser cut was made of lines of different thickness. That worked on the laser cutter, but when I tried to vinyl cut it, the thickness of the lines didn't show up, so they were all the same thickness. I learned that the logo had to be made of shapes for it to be cut on the vinyl cutter. I went back to Adobe Illustrator to change my logo into shapes, but it ended up being very hard to do with the volleyball logo. The shapes did not look right and it didn't look like a volleyball. Therefore, I ended up using the other logo I made that was a basketball with my first name in it. This worked much better and the vinyl cut version turned out really well! The letters were a little hard to work around when I was peeling out the parts I didn't want of the sticker. From this project I learned a lot about the vinyl cutter and how to create a good design that will work when you cut it out using the machine.

This is my 3-D printed logo. I made some modifications to the design by just putting my initials inside the basketball. One mistake I made when doing this project was the size. I accidentally printed it too big. The reason I did this was because my design was the correct 2 inches in adobe illustrator, and when I exported it to Tinkercad, I assumed it would stay as 2 inches. Turns out, I had to rescale it when it was in Tinkercad. Next time, I will know to change the size and make sure it's right at every step. Other than that, it turned out successful.

This is my name stand I made with the laser cutter. I enjoyed doing this project because I could design the name stand. I decided to put a geometric pattern at the top made from triangles. I learned how to put a grid in Adobe Illustrator and use that to make sure the tabs on the bottom of the stand match up and fit into the holes on the base. It turned out successful, however, it wasn't that sturdy because the top piece was slightly loose where it connected to the base. I think you could fix that by making the dimensions of the holes in the base smaller.

These are my drawings of a cube, cylinder, marker box, and tape roll. The cube and cylinder were drawn from memory and the marker box and tape roll were drawn from observations. I thought the most difficult one was the marker box because it had so many parts to it. This activity was helpful because when we draw thumbnail sketches, we have to be able to draw basic shapes.

These are my thumbnail sketches for the glasses project. It was difficult to come up with ideas because you have to think outside of the box to come up with original ideas. Also, I had to try to make them as symmetrical as I could. That was difficult because I had to erase parts and draw them again so they were perfect. My favorite pairs of glasses that I drew were the heart glasses or the glasses with stars on the sides.

These are the card stock glasses I made using scissors, tacky glue, a pencil, and box cutters. I made these using the design of the star glasses. I made the eye pieces too small so next time I am going to make them bigger. I also want to make the stars on the sides bigger and more symmetrical. They were the hardest part to cut with scissors, so using the laser cutter will be nice because they will be exactly how I want.

This is the sketch for my designer glasses. I learned that I need to be precise in my measurements and the grid paper really helped me design the glasses to be symmetrical and fit my face well.

These are my glasses design laser cut in cardboard. I think they turned out well, because the side pieces fit into the front well and didn't need any glue. One thing that I needed to change was the length of the side pieces. They were too short so I made them longer when I cut the glasses out of wood.

These are the glasses cut out of wood. I like the way they turned out! The adjustments I made from the cardboard version worked well because the side pieces are longer and fit my face better. The side pieces were slightly loose going into the front so I just used a little tacky glue. Overall, my glasses were successful.

These are the thumbnail sketches I did for my set of chess pieces. My ideas were a set with an astrology theme, including a star piece, a moon piece, and a shooting star piece. Another idea was a marine life themed set. This included a sand dollar, coral, and a sand castle. Another idea I had was to make a chess set that is sports themed. That would include a basketball, volleyball, baseball and baseball bat, and a football. I decided to choose the marine themed set because it thought that would be the most challenging to make the coral. I wanted to try to design it in Tinkercad.

This is my sketch of the marine themed chess pieces, but scaled on graph paper and with measurements. I only drew the base design once because every piece would have the same base. Then I drew everything that would go on top of each one to differentiate between the different pieces. All the different kinds of pieces are: starfish, eel, sand castle, sand dollar, coral, and a shell. The next step is to get feedback and design them in Tinkercad.

This is the first design of the chess pieces I made in Tinkercad. I think they turned out how I wanted. I learned a lot because I used the pre-made shapes on the side in Tinkercad. This was helpful to utilize because then I didn't have to design each part individually. The most difficult part of the design was the sandcastle because it has a lot of small details. Even though I thought the coral was going to be hard, it was actually pretty easy because I just used the tube shape and made it tall and skinny. Then I copied and pasted many of them and put them at different angles. Now I am going to get feedback on my design.

After getting feedback on my first design, I made this version of my chess set. Mr. D suggested that I change the base so that it is more complex and looks more like a chess piece. At first I was intimidated by changing the base but he showed me another feature of Tinkercad: it's a pre-made shape called the multi shape cylinder. It was very easy to make the base with this tool because you could change the dimensions of each level. That allowed me to create this design. I also did some research on the regulation sizes of chess pieces. Then I made my chess pieces that size.

This is the first chess piece I printed. I am happy with how it turned it out. I printed the shell piece to start. I would change the design to make the top level smaller than the bottom. I learned a lot by printing this piece because I got a lot more comfortable with the 3-D printer. I had to export my design and set up the printer with 15% infill and medium print quality. Next I got feedback on this chess piece.

After getting feedback on my chess piece, I designed these pieces in Tinkercad. I changed them so they were smaller and the top level was smaller than the bottom. This part of the project was frustrating because I thought the previous size was good since it was the same size as regulation chess piece sizes. However, Mr. D told me it was too big. I learned from this experience that designing is full of revising and getting feedback, and you just need to keep revising your design to make it better. Even if you think a design is good, there is always something you can improve on.

These are the last two chess pieces I printed. This is the skinnier design I made. I printed the starfish and the sandcastle. The second picture is a closer view of the starfish because it is hard to see it in the first picture. I am happy with the final pieces. However, if i were to change them at all, I would make them in a different color. I would also try to make the color of the base different than the color of the top.

These are my thumbnail sketches for my clock project. I got ideas for the sketches by looking up other clocks online. I made twelve thumbnail sketches. My favorites were the elephant, the sugar skull, and the two types of globes. After getting feedback, I decided to choose the sugar skull for my design.

This is the sketch of my clock design with more detail and measurements. I ended up changing the nose shape and I ended up adding a lot more detail, but this initial drawing was helpful in turning the ideas into a digital file that was able to be laser cut. It was also helpful because I got an idea of the size and dimensions of my clock.

This is the final digital file in Adobe Illustrator of my clock. I added a lot more detail from the sketch on paper. Trying to add all the detail was difficult at first, until I discovered the pen tool on Adobe. That allowed me to use my stylus to add the designs which was much easier and quicker. I thinking having a lot of detail in your design makes it a lot more interesting.

This is the first cardboard version of my clock that I made. It was successful, but I then altered the design to add more details. This version worked fine, but wasn't as interesting as I wanted. One mistake that I made was on one of the stars under the eyes, I accidentally cut it out instead of just etching it. The hairline on the star was accidentally 0.01 which cut it out. Making a cardboard version first is smart because if I had made this mistake on wood, I would have had to print it again which is a waste of materials. With this version, I caught the mistake before printing my final version.

This is the second cardboard version of my clock. This time, after getting feedback, I added more detail using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator and printed it again. I am much happier with this version because it's a lot more interesting to look at. The design didn't fit on the piece of cardboard I was using, so it's not done at the bottom. However, I went on and cut it out of wood because it would work on that.

This is my final version of my clock. I printed my design out of wood, but since the eyes were cut out, you could see the clock gears through them. I was going to cut out a wood background to put in between the gears and the wood piece, but after getting feedback, I decided to use a different color to add contrast. I'm glad I did that instead but it's a lot brighter and makes parts of it pop. I am very happy with my finished clock.

To start my final project, I wanted to make an aquaponic system, which is a way to grow food using fish to fertilize the plants. This would fit with the Fab For Good project because it could grow food for many people and be sustainable. I did some research about how they work and looked at some designs on the internet. Then I made my thumbnail sketches. I changed how the plant bed was connected to the fish tank, for example some sketches have the plants growing on top of the fish tank and a pump that pushes the water up to the plants. Other designs have the plants under the tank, and for them to receive water, there would be small holes at the bottom of the tank that could open and let water through.

After drawing all of my thumbnail sketches, I chose number 5 for my design. I drew this sketch with more detail and incorporated the feedback I got. One of the pieces of feedback I got was to add a support of some kind under the water tube so it was held up. I also labeled the components of the system. This step is important because you take a thumbnail sketch which is quick and simple and turn it into a more detailed and bigger drawing before you make a scaled drawing. This also is a step where you get feedback and make changes to your design.

This is the drawing of the design on graph paper. I made precise measurements and drew the design to scale with the help of the graph paper. The biggest part was the fish tank and I made it 3x2x1 feet. I also added holes on the side of the fish tank and the plant bed for a tube to go that would recycle water back into the fish tank. This step was slightly difficult because I wasn't sure how big to make the system.

Next I made a card stock model of the design. The most difficult part of this was cutting out all of the parts and details because there were small rectangles I had to cut out. Doing this step helped me get an idea of how the final version would turn out. Doing a smaller model in cheaper material is a good idea because if you make any mistakes, it's not as big of a deal as making a mistake with a wood version. I did learn that I needed to make the watering spout shorter because there was some overhang. I also might make it smaller because it doesn't need to be that big.

I started the digital designing process by going on the MakerCase website and making the laser cut designs for the fish tank. I put in the dimensions that I wanted and it made the design for the box and also added tabs on the side so it would fit together. This program is very helpful because in my design there are a lot of boxes, so instead of design all of the boxes on Adobe Illustrator, you can use this website to help you and to make the process faster. To make the others I will just put in the other dimensions and make the holes and rectangles that are cut out of them in Adobe Illustrator.

Over the semester of being in the Fab Lab, I learned a lot. I became confident in using the machines to make the projects I designed. I also learned how to start and finish the design process. The steps include drawing thumbnail sketches, choosing one idea and drawing it in more detail and bigger, drawing it to scale on graph paper, sometimes making a cardboard model, design it digitally, using a machine to make a cardboard version, then making a final version of the final material. You also need to keep getting feedback and making changes to the design throughout the whole process! I learned a lot of terminology such as kerf, raster, vector, hairline, air assist, thumbnail sketches, and many more. I used to think that to make something you just went to the fab lab and cut it out with the laser cutter. Now I know that there are many more steps in the designing process and there are many more cool machines than just the laser cutter. The thing I would change about the course is spending less time on the logos so we could have more time for the final project. I enjoyed doing the clock project because it was fun to design my clock and I am proud of the final result. I felt challenged when I had to design things on the computer because it was frustrating at times. Also when I had to make changes to my designs because it felt like I was taking a step back. I felt proud when I was finished with a project and was happy with it. Then I felt that all my hard work with refining the design and making changes paid off.