Laser Cut 101: Plant Wall Stands

Challenge: To extend a student using a Laser Cutter during independent work time.

Background: This students has shown a considerable talent to independently work on design projects using the school laser cutter, GIMP and Sketch-Up to design project, material and works.   In this instance we were looking for short term projects, ones that the student could complete easily and use as a starting point for something further.

In this example we used a common search engine to look for 'interesting laser cut projects' and saw various hanging stands.   The student took the concept and used Sketch-Up to design a three piece laser cut with the intention of using it to have a small pot plant placed upon it.    The project was cut from the MDF and then glued together using PVA wood glue.   

The next steps for this student are the key.   The project works, the time is exceptionally short (less than five minutes to laser cut the design) - the questions posed to the student: how stable is the design? How much weight can the design hold? How can they add details or features? How can they increase the impact of the design? Would a different wood make a difference? 

Left: The final design shown left having been spray painted and then mounted on the wall.   Given that the design is MDF the decision was made to mount LEGO plants on the holder to act as a test item.

Laser Cutting: Earrings

Challenge: To extend a senior student at our school with the use of the laser cutter.   

Background: This student has completed a number of projects during the past few years, starting with Tinkercad using an iPad and has advanced to working with a laptop and using Gimp and Sketchup.  

The challenge for the student at the moment is to use the technology to work on projects independently to extend herself further.  With our recent (the end of 2023) School Market Day one of the significant projects that was created was using the 3D Printers and Laser Cutter to produce earrings.

The student has combined some of the ideas that they saw last year to work on original ideas for a series of earrings.   

There is the option of using the 3D Printer which produces the PLA/plastic designs.   However this student wanted to use the laser cutter to produce something along similar lines.    The student has started creating a range of ideas.   She has used some online software primarily Sketchup to create a range of geometric shapes - which are shown on the left.  

Once these have been designed and created they have then been printed out using the industrial sized laser cutter.   Each of the individual prints has then been removed from the main sheet of plywood.    When the prints have been removed in these examples they have then had coffee stained into the wood.   The final aspect of the designs has been the attaching of the earring metal clips to the pre-made holes in the shapes.    These have been purchased locally from a craft shop for a minimal amount.

The second kind of design potential was created by using Gimp to convert a freely available picture and to use the image such as shown with the cactus designs on the left.

Level of Difficulty for the Project: The individual earrings are low - however this is intended to be a long term project with a number of aspects to it with a variety of designs.   For instance a challenge for the student is to produce original laser cut stands to display the earrings for instances when they are going to be displayed.

Size: These are a variety of standard earrings sizes depending on the design of the individual objects.

Timeframe: Each of these individual laser cuts are approximately thirty seconds in length.   There is a slight variation depending on the depth and width of each print.

Laser Cutting: Students Basic Projects to Start the School Year

Challenge: To introduce Laser Cutting to students in the junior school.

Background: Its 2024 - this is another school year in New Zealand, in a junior classroom where the students are seven and eight years old.  Again this year we are looking at producing projects and engaging the students with a range of activities.   This year to create something different for 'the last stand' we are wanting to introduce the concept of Laser Cutting to the students.

This was a short project created by a senior student (twelve year old) at the school which is intended to excite the juniors into following the example.   This project is intended as an introductory example so that the students can get the 'feel' for the laser cutter in a short space of time.   

Level of Difficulty for the Project: Low.  The student involved selected an image online with the intention of it being a silhouette.  They then used GIMP to introduce a circle as the background, converting the file in the process making it suitable for laser cutting, in this case a background of a circle was chosen.   It is going to be passed over to Y3 and Y4 students in the coming days.

Size: The design is currently 150mm across.   The bamboo that is used for the wood (this is not MDF) was chosen as something durable that could be handled but there is not intended to be any sealing or painting of the wood, the idea is to complete the project as quickly as possible.

Timeframe: The speed of the laser cutter is one of the best things about it.  Three of these were completed in under ten minutes - the intention is to push these out for a number of students (a class) in short order.

What we would do differently/next steps for students: The image shown above while striking has not worked perfectly, there was some loss inside the interior of the flowers.  The purpose of the laser cut is another issue - at present the idea is to create a stencil - but this is not easily possible unless the wood is spray painted, which would affect its presentation.   This will be developed further.