22-23 Week of 1/2 – 1/6

We hope everybody had an enjoyable holiday and New Year break, but we were happy to be back in the shop last week and working projects again.

Senior Ben Montello finished a scale prototype of his CNC chair. He wrote about it on is blog:

This week in shop was short, so I decided to just focus on laser cutting and painting a final cardboard model of my chair. My first struggle of the week was finding cardboard but with some help I was able to acquire some. I then loaded my files from Inkscape to the laser cutter which quickly made the cuts. After that I sprayed painted each piece and assembled the model with hot glue.

Check out his website here for photos of his project.

Also, Senior Jackie Whealan was able to assemble her snow globe made from laser cut acrylic. She discusses the process on her website saying:

I have continued the progress on my snow globe that I could not finish before the break. This began with finishing completely assembling it in acrylic. I needed to tape all of the pieces together before I used an adhesive properly to ensure the edges lined up properly. If the edges were not lined up perfectly, it would leak. I had used an acrylic adhesive and began the assembly portion before the break, but I finished the remaining sides this week. The acrylic adhesive welds the side together so I can eventually put liquid in it, which I tested yesterday! I used water from our sink in shop to fill the container, and mark the edges where leaks occurred. I also removed the paper outside of the acrylic, and the tape after I leak-tested it, allowing me to see the full effect of how the snow globe will look. It looks stunning.

See photos of the globe at Jackie’s website here.

Junior Anthony Cartolano finally was able to get his arm out of a sling he has worn for a long time due to injury. He has been working on an LED light box, and was able to produce a first prototype.

This week was short because of when we got back from break on Tuesday and I was out one day because of a doctor’s appointment, but I was still able to assemble my box. I showed my original model to Mr. L, but he said that I had too much extra space and should make the box smaller. After I did that, I added holes for both the but and Micro USB holder. The cardboard model I made worked, so I made it out of wood. Next week I need to cut the Rolling Stones logo out of acrylic and fix up any code issues, then I’ll finish this project.

See photos on his website here.

Most of the sophomore like Milo Austin are working on their PCBs for the LED Light Box project. They have been cutting the soldering and will hopefully have the final versions completed by Feb 1.