Coaster: IRL


To bring our coaster project to completion, I have made a physical version of my design. Here's how we got there! 


To start, I took my design and turned it into a 2D map that could be read by the laser. My design only uses the cutting function, with the design work created through the negative space. To accomplish this, I needed three pieces: the main body piece, a top lip, and a smaller bottom lip that allows the coaster to nest. The above photo shows how I laid them out on my material. 

For this project, I used teal mirrored acrylic to create my coaster. Mirrored acrylic reflects light, and is both "classy" and decorative at the same time - seemingly a good fit for an office setting. Acrylic is also easily cleaned, another benefit of the material. To protect the surface from burn marks as can happen with laser cutting, I used a paper masking. 



As a reminder of what my 3d design looks like, here are some renderings. 





I find that the reflectivity of the mirrored acrylic is hard to capture in the renderings, but I am pleased by how close to my digital design my physical design is. In the future, I would like to make a full set so I am able to display how the nesting function works in real life. 

The beauty of designing intricate patterns that are able to be laser cut is that the laser will always cut them the same, and will always provide clean lines and smooth cuts to your finished work, assuming the lines you have told it to cut have those qualities. I really enjoy working with laser cutters, and it was interesting to use a program other than Adobe Illustrator to create. 

The photo's below are of my digital-turned-real-life coaster.





  

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