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Cutting and engraving sheet material: kerf, joints, settings, and safe setup.
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A landscape as a stack of plywood contours. Two routes to the cut files, one through a terrain model and Fusion's slicing template, one through real contour lines in QGIS and Illustrator, plus how to pick the vertical scale so Ontario does not come out flat.
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Engrave a die into laser rubber, print a handle that fits it, and you have a tool that neither machine could make alone. Artwork rules, mirroring, Speedy settings and a Fusion handle in one short walk-through.
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Pull real street data out of OpenStreetMap as vectors, turn the roads into cuttable shapes in Illustrator, and decide whether the roads are the wood or the gaps before you send it to the laser.
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Modify → Arrange packs every flat part of your model onto a 600 × 300 mm sheet in one go. Set the envelope, pick the components, read the result, then project the layout to a sketch and save it as a DXF.
Design Project · 1 lesson ·
A one-lesson project. Model a two-piece slot-together stand in Fusion and cut it from 3 mm plywood so the slots hold without glue.
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What is actually happening inside the laser cutter, and the three ways to use it. Cutting, line engraving and raster engraving are the same beam doing three different jobs.
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The laser removes a sliver of material on every cut. Here is how to measure it on your machine and design joints that account for it.
Design Project · 3 weeks ·
Design a glider that flies straight and far from a hand launch. Airfoil ribs and a fuselage from laser-cut balsa, a printed nose and wing saddle, and a test log that proves the glide ratio got better.
Design Project · 5 weeks ·
Find out where people actually get lost in your building, then design the signs, colours, names and maps that fix it. A system, not a sign. Tested with strangers before anything is printed.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Design a clock for a wall, three ways. A laser-cut analog clock on a quartz movement; a printed clock with electronics that tells the time in a way nobody has seen; or a clock that measures something other than the hours, like the tide, the moon, a season, or a deadline. Pick one route, or one route and a twist.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Pick one scene from a play, a film or a book and design the space it happens in, as a lit scale model. Read for what the scene needs, decide what the room says about the people in it, then build it in plywood, print and light.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Design and make one hand prop that has to be believed. A key, a lantern, a device, a weapon that is not one, a book that does not exist. It has to read from the distance it will be seen at, survive the run, and be safe in an actor's hand.
Design Project · 5 weeks ·
Design and build one full-size piece of scenery that a production can actually use. A door unit, a window flat, a platform, a rolling wagon, a staircase. It has to look right from the seats, hold the people who use it, move on and off in the dark, and come apart to fit through a door.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Design a machine that throws a payload as far and as repeatably as you can. Prove the mechanism at desk scale with a ping-pong ball, then build it full size from 2×4s and launch a pie pumpkin across the field.
Design Project · 5 weeks ·
Design and build a physical display, model or hands-on simulation that teaches one idea to a stranger in about a minute, with no one there to explain it. A working mechanism, a cutaway, a scale model, or an interactive that shows why something happens.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Design and build one interactive module on a 10" × 10" plywood square that stands alone and also lives beside other people's modules on a shared wall. An Arduino, some inputs, some outputs, and an experience that makes a stranger say "that was fun" or "interesting".
Design Project · 6 weeks ·
Build a tabletop, display-grade model of one human joint that moves the way the real one moves and stops where the real one stops. Bones printed, ligaments that limit motion, muscles that drive it if you go that far, on a base that says what you are looking at. Designed with a kinesiology partner who knows the anatomy.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Design and build a small speaker from a driver, an amplifier board and a box you designed for that driver. The box is the product. Its volume, its port and its stiffness decide how it sounds as much as the driver does.
Design Project · 5 weeks ·
Design and build a structure for an animal that will actually use it. A solitary bee hotel, a bird or bat box, a cat tower, a catio, a dog house. The client cannot read your drawings, so the research has to be right.
Design Project · 5 weeks ·
Build a scale model of the campus that helps a new student find their way. Each group makes one building from plans; everyone assembles the site together. Labels, colour and a legend make it a map, not just a model.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Design an award for a real event at the school and make a run of them, combining laser-cut structure, a 3D-printed figure or feature, and a UV-printed plate. A product, not a one-off.
Design Project · 3 weeks ·
Model a wave or an object in Fusion, slice it into parallel ribs, cut them from 3 mm plywood and stack them on rods so the surface reappears in the air between them. One panel per person, under 12" × 12", assembled into a wall.
Design Project · 3 lessons ·
Engrave a stamp die into laser rubber on the Trotec Speedy, then design and print a handle that fits your hand and tells you which way is up. Artwork, mirroring, shoulder angles, ergonomics, and ten clean impressions.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Design and build a small carnival game that fits on a table, runs for an afternoon at a school event, and is fair, fun and hard to break. Wood, laser-cut graphics, and optional lights, sound and scoring.
Design Project · 6 weeks ·
Design prompt: tell a compelling story about sustainability. Technical skill: laser cutting, with vinyl wall lettering for the label. Displayed museum-style.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Design and build a wall panel that absorbs sound and looks like it belongs in the room. Test the material choice, not just the look, and write a spec sheet for the result.
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Split any solid into layers the thickness of your sheet, arrange them on the material and cut. Bigger than a 3D printer can manage, and every layer is one flat outline.
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Draw one section, revolve two discs, pattern the section around an axis and cut every slot with one Combine. A vase, a lampshade or a sculpture from a single sheet.
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Two flat profiles, a slot in each, and they slide together into a 3D form. The fastest way to get a solid-looking object out of sheet material.
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Let MakerCase generate the box, then bring the DXF into Fusion, extrude the panels and snap them together with Align. You end up with a box you can modify in 3D and still cut flat.
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