My first laser cutter project (cardboard chair)

I just wanted to share about my son’s school project with which I helped him on Friday night. This was my first time using a laser cutter, and it went very well! BTW, huge thanks to Freddy in Logistics for helping us out in a pinch!

My son has a big project in his high school Engineering class to design and make a cardboard chair. He did a small-scale prototype first, cutting all the pieces by hand. It took him a long time and it came out rough, to say the least, so I suggested that we use a laser cutter to make the final product. He was totally on board, so I took the Laser 101 class online (thank you to the Laser committee for putting that online!) and we prepared to do it.

Like any good project, there were some difficulties along the way. In this case, he had designed the pieces assuming a different cardboard thickness than what we had in hand, but we were able to fix the width of all the slots in the drawings with Inkscape and carry on cutting the pieces with Big Thunder.

Five or six hours later, we had all the pieces cut out and assembled the chair. It came out great, and will easily hold the required weight. Thanks to the Laser committee for providing such an awesome capability at the Makerspace.

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