For the laser cutting assignment, originally i was thinking to integrate some local traditional pattern into my design, but that didn’t go so well. So I change the direction to merge the joint system with my final project proposal. What I was trying to do is to design a generative system that allow me to use a waffle structure to hold the irregular surface that I proposed for the pinball machine tabletop. I tried to learn grasshopper. It feel like something in between coding and 3D modeling. I build a simple file in grasshopper that allow me to alter some parameters like X,Y beams quantities, material thickness, beam thickness, by inputing any kind of surface, can generate a cutting file for laser cutting purpose.
The process for bringing rhino exported illustrator file to laser cutter wasn’t so smooth, It turned out that rhino created too many duplicated path, so i had to remove them manually. For the vinyl cutter project, I am still working on connecting fab module to our vinyl cutter, a Graphtec CE6000-60. No problem for using it with it’s driver, but still haven’t figure out how to let it work with fab module. I’ll keep trying.