Week 2 # - Journal

Our assignment this week is to design and fabricate a desktop mobile phone stand using the laser cutting machine. I was inspired by this desktop organizer on instructables.com .

I was also inspired by the cardboard mobile stand i made at the start of the week session during the Hands on, Mind on activity.

Using Fusion 360 to sketch the different parts of the phone stand. It consists of 2 sides (identical) and 3 other identical parts (top, bottom and back). Adding multiple fixation methods like t-slots for M3 screws and guiding tabs that make the design very sturdy. After sketching all the parts, i extruded them individually then started joining the together. The the design was saved in .dxf before setting up the parameters in the Laserwork software, which turns it into .rld file that can be sent to the laser cutting machine. Amazingly it worked perfectly on the first try. Below are the fully defined designs on Fusion 360.

After i sketched the design on fusion 360 as separate parts, i extruded all pieces to a specific thickness, then i joined them together to make sure everything fits together nicely, which they did. Then i save the design as a .dxf file and opened it via laserwork software to set up the laser cutting parameters. After cutting, i sanded all the faces slightly to remove the burn marks on the plywood then proceeded to assemble it using M3 screws. The guiding tabs we very helpful for quick alignment and setup.

Ladies and gentlemen, i introduce to you the finished product. The phone stand:

The only significant challenge i faced was sketching the t-slots and guiding tabs properly and estimating the overall dimensions for the phone stand. But a few trials and errors made it work at last. I got the dimensions for the tslots and guiding tabs from previous designs that we did the past week. The dimensions for the phone stand were aquired through trying my actualy phone on a paper sketch and through the cardboard phone stand we made earlier.

This week we got introduced to Fusion 360, which is a powerful tool, a little challenging at first but practice gets you a long way. We had multiple exercises like the miniature rocking chair, the fidget spinner and the wardrobe.

Getting into digital sketching is a challenge since it always felt overwhelming but im excited to learn more and more about the software to give me more freedom with my creations.