Part 1: When we started this project in November, I was quite excited. I thought laser cutting was a cool concept and the phone holder would be very useful. I first measured my phone and then started to sketch 3 possible designs for my phone holder. After getting the initial sketches done, I received feedback from my peers and added things that would improve my phone holder. I added hooks to the designs and also a place to add my AirPods.

After I finished sketching, we downloaded fusion 360 and started learning how to use the tools. We watched a couple of videos and we started to sketch different shapes into fusion. We worked on mostly learning how to use all of the tools and it was pretty difficult at first but it got easier as I did it more.

Then, we went online. When we went online, we continued working in fusion but we also had the option to drop the phone holder and start a new project which was making your own LED lamp. I chose to make a LED lamp and I first chose a design for the lamp. since we were online, I just browsed the internet and chose a design.

 

 

After I showed my design to Ms. Kim, she approved it and we chose our measurements for the lamp. We just traced those into fusion to see what it would look like, then we learned how to make fingers in fusion.

 

 

It was quite difficult at first, but thankfully, for our final design, we got to use a website that would make our boxes for us. After inserting all of our measurements and customizing makercase, I downloaded the DXF and then inserted it into fusion. We then added all of our designs and added the necessary factors onto the box. For example, I had to cut a semi-circle in one panel in order to have a place for the cord to go through.

 

 

After making all of these changes, I downloaded light burn and inserted my final design project into it. After reading the directions in DX, I colored all of it red and then colored the parts I want to be etched, into black. After saving that, I sent it to Ms. Kim and after it got approved, it got sent to be laser cut into cardboard.

Since I was online, I had to pick it up from school. But since I was sick, I couldn’t pick it up from school right away. After picking it up, I went on break and I didn’t assemble it. When I got back to school, I assembled it in class and I tested it out with the light bulb. Most of it was great but I saw that the bridges were a bit too thin and it would break. So, I went back into fusion and I made the bridges a bit thicker. I just sent one side for laser cutting into cardboard because everything else was fine. I just needed to check if the bridges were good. After checking the bridges were ok, I sent my design to the laser cutter to be cut into wood. after getting it back, I decided to stain it into this dark brown color.

Part 2: At first, fusion was super overwhelming because it had so many tools and it was kind of confusing. We started off by learning about the view cube, dimensions, and rectangles from a video. This part wasn’t too hard because we were still offline. After that, we explored the line tool and the circle tool. I also got the hang of this pretty quickly. Now, the spline tool and the mirroring tool were a bit more challenging, especially the mirroring. It was a bit more complex, but once I learned how to do it, it got easier. Similar to mirroring, offset lines were a bit challenging. But, I feel like circular and rectangular were very confusing. I couldn’t quite figure out how to use it and it took me multiple tries to get it correct.

After learning about the different tools to make shapes, we learned about the trim and break tool which was very useful. It wasn’t too hard to get the hang of but I sometimes got confused about which tool was for what.

 

 

After we went online, I decided to make a LED lamp instead of a phone holder. During online, we started working on making fingers in fusion. This was the most difficult thing I’ve had to do in fusion. Especially because it was online, it was so confusing and I still can’t really get the hang of it. Thankfully, we could use a website called makecase which would just make our boxes for us and we could just insert them into fusion. I wanted my lamp to have a lot of light so I made the box pretty small. After inserting my box, I also inserted my design as a canvas and traced the 444 design with the line tool. I also added the bridges which were kind of annoying but I used the copy/move tool which made it so much easier. I also added the circle and the screw holes on the bottom and the cord hole to the side using the circle tool and break tool.

I saved the file as a DXF and inserted it into light burn. Since we were online, I read the instructions in DX and

just colored the parts I wanted to be cut into red and etched into black. I submitted it and when I assembled it, the bridges were too thin so I went back into fusion and made the bridges thicker using the copy and move tool. Then, I just laser cut one side to make sure the bridge was thick enough, and then I submitted it to be cut into the wood. I stained the wood into a dark brown color.

Part 3:

(1) The advice I would give incoming students is to never, EVER procrastinate because I myself had a lot of trouble with that. It is so much better to just get your work done.

(2) I would probably try to pay more attention in class and focus on my work because I could definitely feel I had some trouble with that.

(3) I didn’t really enjoy the utensil challenge much. It was disappointing because all we did was draw and we didn’t get a chance to make anything. I really enjoyed working in fusion but it definitely could get a bit frustrating at times. It probably won’t be as bad for the new students because they probably won’t go online. I think what was better was individual projects. I found it hard to focus on working with other people on group projects.