This is a blog about the process of making my lamp. I made this lamp to have a mood light on the table in my room.
Part 1: Ideas Into Design Concepts
Firstly, I started with some ideas.
I had ideas for a desk organizer or a lamp at the start, but I quickly scrapped the desk organizer idea, because I realized that I needed a lamp for my bedroom, so I quickly switched to the lamp. For the lamp, I was thinking of a cube-shaped lamp or something similar. I found this design of a lamp on the internet:
But, I didn’t like this lamp because it seemed too simplistic and impractical for daily use. At this time, I decided to go with a cube-shaped lamp with some geometrical, simple patterns. This is the actual plan I used while creating the lamp:
As you can see, the plan shows a perfectly cube-shaped lamp. But when I made the paper prototype, I realized that the light wasn’t going to shine through the holes that I made on my lamp, because the holes were positioned too low that the light bulb’s light wasn’t going to shine through very well. So, I made the lamp’s height a little higher, so that the light shined more brightly through the holes.
After that, I went on to design in Fusion and make the cardboard prototype. 
This is my design in Fusion. You can see that I arranged it into a net, so I can easily see which parts connect to which parts. I needed to do a little calculation and some experimentation with the tools in Fusion in order to make the patterns, but after that, it was all very easy and straightforward. After the design in Fusion was finished, I put it into LightBurn and sent it to FabLab for laser cutting.
This is my LightBurn screen, you can see that I tried to fit the pieces as closer together in order to save cardboard. The cutting was sometimes too strong, so I had to ask them to cut again a couple more times in order to get it right.
After that, after adding some designs to the bottom of the lamps to lessen the emptiness, I finally cut it in wood, and the pieces got cut really nicely. After gluing the pieces together, staining them (it took a very long time to select the color), attaching the light bulb at the bottom, and gluing the light diffuser, I finally put it all together and plugged it into the wall. I loved it so much! My lamp was beautiful!
I am really happy with my work because I love how the holes let out a lot of light but still look very modern. But I feel like I could have finished it faster if I spent my time more wisely.
Part 2: Growth in Skills
Firstly, in Fusion, I feel like I have learned the fundamentals of designing in Fusion. I learned all sorts of things from how to make basic lines to how to make visually appealing patterns using Circular and Rectangular Pattern tools. Because I was not at school for a few days because I was sick, I couldn’t listen to the class about making text, and it was very challenging for me when I first attempted it. But, after watching the DX videos about it, I understood it and learned how to use it. I also learned that in LightBurn, you couldn’t edit things very well, and it was annoying that whenever I found a mistake while in LightBurn, I had to go back to Fusion, edit it in Fusion, and export it into a DXF file and import it into LightBurn again. I learned how to use wood glue to glue wooden pieces together, and I thought staining was really cool because, after a few brushstrokes, I could change how the wood looked entirely. It looked like a different type of wood!
These are some designs from the start of the semester until now:
You can see that the designs get more and more complex as the semester progresses, which shows my learning journey throughout the course.
Part 3: Reflecting and Sharing
If I were to give some tips and tricks to the new students, I would recommend gluing the wooden pieces last, because If you glue it first, then it becomes much harder to do other jobs, such as staining. If I started over on this project, I would have attempted to do a more complex design, because I think this design is too simplistic (not that I don’t like it), and I could have tried harder to make more complex designs. Something that I think this class could improve on (as a whole, not just the teacher), is time management. Everyone couldn’t finish their projects by the goal deadline, so if the class all worked harder and finished it earlier, I think we could have had more time on the 3D project, which I think is very cool, although I only had one lesson on it.
Thank you for reading, and I hope future students making this lamp has a fun time making it like I did!
900 Words!!!!!