Jack Purcell: Week 12 - Laser Engraved Skateboard

Concept: I wanted to create a skateboard that represented me. I thought I could accomplish this by incorporating a pseudo 3D element and my personal logo. I chose a 3D grid pattern illusion to represent the 3D aspects of my life as I want to go into the 3D industry  myself. I also Incorporated my personal logo and modified it to be viewed from any angle. I felt it would be important to represent myself with this skateboard as skateboards tend to represent their owner in some way.


Processes: I created the repeating pattern in Illustrator using the pathfinder tools and grouping to maintain a constant distance between the elements. I also centered my logo and measured where the trucks would be when attached and placed blank spaces to the trucks would lay flat. In my design I made the pattern larger than the edge so that way the board wouldn't have to be perfectly centered on the laser. Instead of using the laser at the machine shop I used the laser at the Dallas Makerspace and was able to get a much darker engraving that was able to utilize more of the board.

Materials: The board was finished with some kind of coating that vaporized when on the laser and left soot and sticky residue. A trick I learned when laser engraving something awhile back was that those Magic Eraser cleaning products work wonders on the soot left by the laser. If I had to make this board again I would want to create an inlay with a darker wood and seal the board with a thick resistant resin.

Durham Matthew Week 11 - Laser engraving

Concept:

   For my design I wanted to make a skate board deck that would capture one of my friends personalities while combining the two things she loves. Her dog and anything that deals with skating. Normal i would add the reference photo of her and her dog however her and her family expressed their wishes of it not being shown but where fine with the me being able to show the drawing I did instead.

Technique:

   For the technique all I did was draw from a reference photo in Photoshop a picture of her dog. I wanted to keep the drawing simplified. While in the background i have a bohemian esque pattern, that was also drawn in Photoshop. They where then combined and imported into Adobe Illustrator to make the vector and raster lines for it.

Materials: 

   For my board I used a 38 and 1/2 long board deck. I didn't want to add any paint to the board so i could keep it very minimal, because that is also her style. She likes the looks and feel of organic things. So I felt like just the darker wood from the raster engraving would be enough. 

Update: I applied a stain so the recessed part would be a little bit darker.

Link to skateboard deck on Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Bamboo-Skateboards-Square-9-65-Inch-Natural/dp/B00I4KKPVM/ref=sr_1_29?ie=UTF8&qid=1513030581&sr=8-29&keywords=skateboard+deck+bamboo+cruiser

Taylor Volquardsen : Week 11 : Laser Engraving

Vurro's Boogie

Tiny Plants

Background Influence

Concept:
My design was heavily influenced by the video in the link above. The video combined with lots and lots of plants pretty much sums up my aesthetic, so I wanted that to come through in my engraving. Just the skull with the plants on the board felt empty though, so I added a graphic art background to help fill in the space behind them.

Design in Adobe Illustrator

After Engraving

Techniques:
I wanted a slightly jagged feel, so I hand traced all of my pieces in my design using a heavy stroke with the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. It's composed entirely of straight lines, even when it looks curved. When I got it back from the machine shop on campus, I used a medium-sized brush to fill in the large engraved parts of the board with wood stain, then used a much smaller detail brush and a towel to fill in the smaller lines of the design. I used the towel to brush away any stain that got outside of the grooves and clean the board. After the stain dried, I added a coat of clear gloss polyurethane to seal everything.

Stained Engraving

Materials:
8.5 in Moose blank skateboard deck
Varathane Kona wood stain
Minwax clear gloss polyurethane

Hannah Barnes: Week 10 Cardboard Ball

Concept:

For my costume, I wanted to create a bird mask emulating a species from The Legend of Zelda, known as the Rito. I decided to create the upper half of the birds face with only the top part of the beak, then I added thick feathers protruding from the back of the mask, as seen in the Rito reference picture. Originally, I wanted to leave the cardboard white then add colored cardboard for decoration on the mask. After some complications building the mask however, I decided to paint the mask and turn it into a hat instead.

Technique:

I modeled the mask in Maya. I wanted it to be simple to build, so I tried to limit the amount of polygons I used, which created a blocky look. I translated this to Pepakura to slice the mask into vector shapes. This took several tries to get right, but once I did, I imported the vector file into Rhino where I prepped the laser engraving file.

I got the mask engraved on eflute cardboard. The mask turned out to be too small, so I decided to turn it into a hat. I attempted to assemble the pieces using Locktite super glue, but this turned out poorly. Many of the connecting flaps on the cardboard were too small, and the super glue didn't have much to stick to when I connected the pieces. I also didn't realize that if you mess up on gluing the first time, you can't try and reglue the pieces together. I didn't have any hot glue, so I instead used tape to hold the hat together.

Lastly, I created a simple cardboard band that wraps around my head to secure the hat in place.

Materials:

I used eflute cardboard for this project since the hat was so small and had many pieces that were close together. I painted the hat with red and gold acrylic to add some color and make it feel more cohesive. I'm not pleased with the way the hat turned out, but if I had the chance to do it again, I would use colored cardboard instead of paint. Hopefully, that would give the hat more of a intriguing, stylized feel as opposed to feeling like a kid's mask.

Taylor Volquardsen: Week 10 Cardboard Ball

Concept:
My original idea was to create a boar's skull. I had seen things like longhorn skulls and elephant heads, but not a boar. The idea for a boar, in particular, came from the movie Princess Mononoke. I thought it would be fun to work with the tusks.

Technique:
I originally pulled a few different models from the digital databank. I had the idea of taking one of the animal skulls and modifying it to look like a boar's. I decided that I didn't have the time to do the sort of work that would have required, so instead, I took the cat skull model, lowered the polycount, and reworked the wireframe into something that would be easier to cut in Pepakura. As I started putting together the cardboard pieces of the skull, I realized some of the pieces came out smaller than I thought they would, making them hard to manipulate and I had some trouble getting some of the pieces to fit right. In the end, I ended up editing the design some and removed the complicated eye socket structure to aid in construction.

Materials:
Cardboard, and eventually sealant and acrylic paint

David Rake: Week 11 - Laser Engraving

Concept:

I made a replica Thomas helmet from the band Daft Punk for the Serial Slicing Assignment. I thought the helmet would look decent if it was repeated a couple of times in a horizonal direction. Almost like the neon 16 bit art.

Technique:
I used the make2d command to pull a perspective view of the head to get the majority of its aspects. After I replicated it 3 times and combined the outer curves. Originally I just engraved the helmet lines and it turned out alright but seemed too simple. After I took the three helmets and applied a different density hatch to each.

Materials:

From the start I planned on using Acrylic. The original helmet is chrome and reflective. The helmet stands out but in a different way than paint. Acrylic is one of the closer replacements because its clear unlike most other engravings on wood or such.

Rebecca Genung: Week 11 Laser Engraving

For this project I wanted to do a heart. Heart abnormalities run rampant in my lineage: so much so that I, my mother, and my great-grandmother all have a extra, fully formed, and functioning valve. I also have a heart rate averaging 4 times higher than the healthy amount for someone of my build. I'm not unhealthy, it's just genetic. With that in mind: I will die of a heart attack one day relatively soon. To me, hearts don't represent emotion but rather the duality of life and death. My heart powers my body, but it will ultimately be the thing that kills it.

For my image, I drew a heart in vector in PhotoShop with the pen tool (shape mode). Then I imported the .PSD file to Illustrator and converted it to a .AI file. I wanted to imply the animation of a beating heart.

While I think cut metal would be the nicest looking,  I went with cardboard for financial reasons. While the lines were smooth, the cut has several puncture areas that stand out. I still like how it turned out though.

Jason Doze: Week 11 Laser Engraving

Vesalius Inverted Drawing

Vesalius

Rhino Setup

Second Panel With Triangles

 

 

Concept:  I used a photograph of a Vesalius drawing I did last summer in figure drawing and then inverted and used a halftone filter.  Then I manipulated a metatron cube and ran both of these in illustrator.  There I image traced the cube and outlined the drawing with a path function.  I set up the Vesalius figure within a six pointed star with the metatron cube in the center.  Next I found a triangle geometric illusion svg, manipulated it and put it on another piece of wood to set atop the previous piece.  

Materials:  I used birchwood and cedar laminated birchwood for the two engravings.  I'm spinning the top layer of wood with a ball bearing fixture and I've used a satin varnish to finish the bottom layer and I have dyed the top layer with orange and pink wood stain. 

Technique: I applied Ultra Dye wood stain with a synthetic paint brush to give the top panel some contrast over the bottom panel.  After applying the stain I sanded the drawn engravings to pull the wood back through.  I used a dremel tool with sanding blade to give the stain a weathered appearance and then clear gloss over the top to give it a protective coating.

Corrina Spurlin: Week 11 Skateboard Engraving

Illustrator Design

Engraved Board

Close-Up of Engraving

Attempt with graphite

Concept
The concept for my skateboard design largely played off of the visuals that came from my 3D Printed Model. I wanted to continue the rose-like theme, while upholding a rigid and geometric aspect to it as well. I wanted to contrast from my 3D model, however, in that the design would appear generally intricate and compact, instead of simple and open. 

Technique
The main techniques utilized in this assignment were the line tool and pathfinder in Illustrator. I also used the rotate tool to create the radial flower designs that sit between the diamonds. Pathfinder was used to crop an inverted version of that design so that it could appear again, just in a different form. 

The file was setup to match the board as closely and accurately as I believed possible, but when it came time to engrave, problems arose and the engraving ended up being off-centered on both axes. 

Materials
The materials used within this project were the skateboard deck, and use of the program Adobe Illustrator. 

The material of the board created an issue for me when it came time to actually engrave, as it had an outer non-wood protective layer that caused the engraving to look different than I would have preferred. The laser had to do more work to get through to the wood, so when it did it was weaker and didn't appear dark. I plan to engrave my design again in the future with a board that either does not have a protective layer, or one that will be easy to sand down off the wood. That way the final product will look much darker (and as close to black as possible without any of the design).

It was recommended to me that graphite or charcoal could be used to fill in the design to make it appear darker, so I tried to mark graphite onto one of the small diamonds to test this theory. As it can be seen in the final picture in the series, this caused the raised layer to look darkened, after wiping off excess, instead of the engraved level. 

EDIT:
I attempted to re-engrave my design with a slightly different material wood that I additionally sanded prior to the laser engraving. The result was far better than my first attempt. 

Stefan Babick: Dodecase

My friends and I frequently play table top games together. We have multiple games running, each with game with its own papers per character per player. These documents are getting more difficult to manage, so I decided a computer dedicated to our games was needed. Portability and power were driving forces in the hardware selection, but not as much as striking design of the case. While looking for inspiration on case modifications forums, the biggest departures from a standard rectangular case were computers mounted on walls with component connecting cables being routed through drywall; not very portable. I looked to our game boxes for inspiration and noticed many of these games used die with greater than six sides.
Looking through all the gaming die in my collection while considering how to construct these shapes around computer hardware, I decided to base my case on a twelve-sided dice for several reasons. The radial symmetry would better allow for modular builds. The pentagonal faces were large compared to the whole shape, only beat by the four sided and six sided dice. This would allow for easier installation of hardware. The dodecahedron also struck a balance between spherical silhouette and complexity of construction.
The case would be comprised of 3 distinct categories of parts. The Support Frame; something to hold up the weight of the computer hardware, the Panel; to conceal the case internal and provide mounting points for hardware, and the Case Frame; the object that would connect the Support Frame and the Panel. 

--------------------------------Case Frame--------------------------------

I used Maya's Solids menu to create a platonic dodecahedron and exported it as an .obj file into Rhino. Points were placed on each vertex. On a separate layer using the Line tool, I drew lines between the vertices to create the edges of the shape. Next, a point was placed on a separate layer in the exact center of the dodecahedron. Lastly, on yet another separate layer, I placed points on the center of each face. I then locked these layers in a parent layer named Reference Points. This was done to break the solid object into basic geometric components I would need to interact with when orienting tools and to aid in general model creation and manipulation.

The next step was to measure all the mounting points of the computer hardware and create to-scale models of the hardware to be placed in the computer case. Knowing generally how much space a given piece of hardware needs for adequate airflow, I brought all the hardware models into the case file, placed the models as close as possible to each other, and scaled the Reference Points layer enough to encapsulate the hardware model. 

To create the Case Frame, I selected all the edges of the of the Reference Points layer and used to the Pipe tool to create 3/8th in thick rounded-cap pipes. I used Boolean Union to merge all these edges into a solid frame.

With the Case Frame selected,  I created a negative space that matched the panels placement on Case Frame using the Boolean Subtract tool. There was a problem. The Case Frame is rounded, and the panels were inset slightly towards the middle of the object to obtain a smooth flow from Case Frame to panel. When the recess was modeled, there was a slight lip overhanging the panels that would prevent them from sliding into place. This took a long time to fix because I had to explode the Case Frame, select each side of the recess individually and copy-extrude them through the overhang. This extrusion was used as a cutting plane to split the overhangs from the Case Frame. Then several hours were spent patching sixty gaps that were a thousandth of an inch thick using the Line, Planarsrf, and Join tools. If these gaps were not fixed, the model wouldn't be solid could not be printed.

Render to show the surface clipping between panel and frame overhang

To complete the Case Frame, I needed to create screw holes so the panels would have a way to be secured. I created screw holes 1/4 inch deep that would fit a 10-32 machine screw. These holes where placed centered in each corner of each panel recess by drawing correctly sized circular curves and extruding these curves to the right depth. These extrusions were then subtracted from the Case Frame.

Lime Green: Radiator Fan

Bright Red: CPU Radiator

Dark Purple: Motherboard

Light Purple: Support Shelf

Brick Red: Graphics Card

Blue: I/O Block

Orange: Hard Drive

Olive: Power Supply

Dark Green: Case Fans

--------------------------------Support Frame--------------------------------

It was time to start on the Support Frame; the shelf that supports the motherboard, graphics card, and hard drive. This was done by drawing a line with the Line tool straight up from each bottom vertex. I then connected the top of these lines to the next row of vertices to create a more structurally sound design. I then made these lines solid using the same method as the Case Frame. I then used Split and PlanarSrf to flatten and cap these struts to give the motherboard shelf a level place to be secured to with screws.

The last piece to add to the model was the power supply unit (PSU) support. The PSU was design to rest its weight on the inside of the bottom panel, but there would be extrusions from the Support Frame to prevent the unit from sliding around. These were made my drawing lines on the surface of the PSU that traveled through the mounting holes. I used the Pipe tool yet again to create a solid that covered each hole of the PSU. I then extruded solid the curves that made the mounting holes of the PSU through these pipes and subtracted these extrusions from the pipes creating holes for screws to pass through. Finally, these pipes were connected to the Support Frame by using Line, PlanarSrf, and Extrude tools to create angled connectors that would not impede screwdrivers from accessing the holes. This completed the Support Frame.

--------------------------------Panels--------------------------------

Using the PlanarSrf tool, I selected the edges that composed a face and made a pentagonal plane. I moved this plane to sit on the outside of the Case Frame, then scaled the plane down to reach a size that showed just enough of the Case Frame. A solid extrusion of the pentagonal plane was set to 1/4th inch thick. I did this for the eleven remaining faces. This was one of the many times I used the the Reference Points to ensure the tools moved along the normal of the face I was working on by selecting the point that represented the center of a face and the center of the model. The screw holes in the panels were made by selecting the curves from the Case Frame screw holes and extruding them through the panels. These new extrusions were subtracted from the Panel solids.

There were solid panels, a front panel, fan panels, a radiator panel, a PSU panel, and  an I/O panel. The solid panels were complete, and the fan and radiator panels were just a matter of extruding a few more screw holes and subtracting like before. The front panel need a hole for the power button, which was done by place a circular curve in the middle that matched the diameter of the power button. The PSU panel was completed by creating a hole where the PSU fan would face downwards and draw cool air in.

The I/O panel was the most difficult. I started by place curves around around the I/O block its mounting holes. After extruding these curves, the rectangle was cut and the mounting holes were connected to the panel using Line, Split, and Join tools. For power, A female power adapter was modeled and cut from the panel. This adapter will be soldered to a power cable that plugs into the PSU and allows for normal power cables to be used on the outside of the case.

The design on the front panel was created by using the Make2D command while in a top-down orthographic view of the model. After much cleanup, the shape met the lab-tech's approval.

I exploded each panel to obtain a single plane with all the mounting holes needed. These were carefully rotated onto a flat plane. The outside of each panel was traced with the Line tool and placed on a magenta layer and each internal hole traced with a curve tool and placed on a blue layer. The front panel design was lined up and place on a red layer.

---I/O Block---

A challenge with this case design was how to plug things into it. Due to size constraints, I couldn't place the motherboard perpendicular to a panel and simply cut a hole in a panel for port access. My solution was to create a pass-through. There would be M/F cables running from the motherboard and graphics card to a panel, and the peripherals would be plugged into those extensions. To start,  I bought the needed extension cables and modeled the female plugs on each one. Each model was also given an extrusion that was slightly smaller than the plug that when subtracted from a larger solid, would prevent the cables from moving forwards or backwards. With the models centered on a line, a bounding box was placed around them and scaled up to give the print some thickness. Curves matching the diameter of a 6-32 screw where placed perpendicular to the ports to screw the two halves of the block together as well as parallel to the ports to screw the entire assembly into the I/O panel.

---Printing and Laser Cutting--
The printer I planed to use had broken down. The project was scaled down 50% to fit into the Fabrication Lab's printer. This meant I needed 1/8th inch thick panels. Sourcing thinner wood was no problem but the screws were another problem. It took about 32 hours to print the Case Frame and I/O Block and another 24 hours of soaking in bath. The panels took 12 minutes to engrave and cut. There was some experimenting done to find the correct settings needed to cut the two-way mirrored acrylic. To get the laser to cut through the panel, The power was high enough to not only cut the acrylic but shrink the uncut material along the edge as well. To account for this I had to scale the front panel file up by a factor of 1.01.




---Processing the Materials---

With the frame printed, it was time to start processing the object. I started with XTC-3D to smooth the serial ridges of the print. This would be important to produce a more metal like finish. While this smoothing compound was curing, I did test stains on some scrap wood to figure the time needed to obtain the desired darkness of stain. 30 minutes was the longest I could wait. Any longer and the stain would start to dry, inconsistently changing the specularity of the wood.

With XTC-3D

Without XTC-3D

With the XTC-3D still curing and stain time determined, I got to work staining my panels. Once the staining was finished, I left the panels to dry over night in my garage. The next morning I applied several coats of satin polyurethane spray to finish the wooden panels.

Once the XTC-3D was dry, I applied several thin base coats of Jet Black paint by Alsa. Once dry, I used Alsa's MirraClear coat to harden and make glossy the finish. This cured for 18 hours before applying the Killer Chrome paint. In skilled hands, Killer Chrome is capable of producing a mirror finish on a smooth dark surface. I don't yet have those hands. With it dry, I polished the chrome coat with a damp cloth, let dry,  and applied the final coat of MirraClear.

Checking that paint hasn't built up enough to impede panels

For the screws, I took sixty small nails, taped them into groups of five, and cut their heads of with a dremel tool. These nail heads were then glued into the panels with Lock-tite. Nearly all the panels fit snug, but the I/O and bottom panel needed a small assist from some double sided tape. A ring was made from a linear foot of RGB LED strip and secured inside the frame to show off the effect the two way mirrored acrylic.

Materials
Satin Polyurethane spray was used for its soft diffusion of light that subtlety displayed underlying wood grain of red oak. General Finishes Cranberry Red Water-based Wood Stain was used to produce a deep and warm earthy red tint to the wood that would contrast to the cold metal finish of the Case Frame and the reflection of the front panel. The front panel is 1/4 inch thick double sided mirrored acrylic pane. I wanted a window to show off the unusual stacking of hardware, but I didn't want an always transparent panel. this mirrored acrylic allows for my hardware to be concealed by controlling the internal brightness of the case. Black chromed 10-32 1/2 inch machine screws are used to affix the panels to the Case Frame. The black chrome complements the warmth of the wood finish and the metal finish without being too eye catching. None external screws are 6-32 machine screws of varying length for threading into computer hardware. The computer hardware is as follows. Also Corp provided the needed paints to obtain a metal finish.

Motherboard: Gigabyte H170N-WIFI
Processor: Intel i5-6400k
Processor Cooler: Corsair H75
Graphics: AMD R9 Nano
Memory: Ballistix Ellite DDR4 8GB
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 500GB SSD
Power Supply: Corsair SF600
Case Fans: Enermax Magma 120mm (two)
The I/O Block: 1 RJ45, 2 USBs, 1 Wifi Antenna Adapter, 5.1 Audio support (via 3 3.5mm jacks), DVI cable route, and HDMI 1.4
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit