Vinyl Cutting
For week 3, computer controlled cutting, I decided to start with the Cricut Maker 3 we have in the room. It has not been used in a while and I did not have much material, so I found some black smart vinyl and decided to cut one of my favorite logos, Honda.
The reason I chose that logo is because I used to ride and race quads and dirt bikes, and between Honda and Yamaha they are some of the toughest machines. I did not have much trouble using the Cricut since my mom used to have one, but hers was an older version that used cartridges for fonts and designs.
As you can see below, I was getting everything dialed in and aligned before starting the cut. Once everything was set, it cut smoothly and was pretty simple overall.
Laser Cutting
After finishing with the vinyl cutter, I wanted to challenge myself more. At the school where I work, we have an Epilog Fusion Edge laser cutter that had not really been used much before I started.
With help from ChatGPT and Gemini, I got the software and file types figured out and used Inkscape to create my designs. At first, I tried making a simple square box, but I did not have the settings correct and ended up wasting about a sheet and a half of wood.
I got frustrated, so I decided to switch things up and try something different. I ended up designing a simple slide-together castle with a drawbridge. This worked better, but I still had issues getting everything to fit together correctly.
The bottom floor was too small, and the tower floors also needed adjustments. I resized the parts and re-cut them until everything finally fit together properly.
In the end, I was able to successfully make the castle and learned a lot about adjusting settings, material thickness, and making parts fit together.