Laser Cutter Fun

A few weeks ago I was asked to help with a presentation on 3D printing. I was asked if there was anything we could print as examples that we could give out to each participant. We wanted something related to ISU but I couldn't find anything so I decided to make a sycamore leaf with ISU in it. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:494399 Design was it was a very simple process. I imported a sycamore leaf into inventor and then just traced it. Added some text and a hole at the top and it was done. Now when talking to people who have no idea what 3D printing is they can have a hard time understanding how the machine works and all of the layers. So I decided I should laser cut out a few layers so I could show them layer by layer how it works.

After cutting these things out I realized that they would make nice decorations so I cut out a bunch of them out and started giving them to people. Personally I like the one in the middle the best. Not only does the middle one look nice, so does the pieces that cut out and glued to a backer board.

After making a bunch of these I started thinking about what other things I could laser cut out. Came up with a fee ideas for presents so this will be updated after they have been distributed.