Wonderful experience of laser cutting

Backgrounds- why we could do it at school

Our school has a center called Steam, which aimed to provide different kinds of extra curriculums for students. This center is well-equipped, for example, it has complex laser cutting equipment, that means we have the opportunity to access laser world–laser cutting!

Activities- what we did here

We used an application online to model different objects. Then we sent our designs to teachers’ computers and they manipulated laser cutting machines by using a computer to cut wood boards. It is worth mentioning that we could bring our designs back home as souvenirs!

What I did there

Actually, I downloaded a picture about The University of Toronto on the Internet in order to make a fridge magnet in the morning. It was so successful that our Physic teacher showed my work in front of my classmates. In the afternoon, since I had already experienced the way to use the modeling application, I designed a box with cover. It took me 2 hours, and I also asked for help during this process.

My fridge magnet is here below.

You could see there are two tiny magnets to help this stick on the walls of fridges.

This is the box I made.

It’s clearly there is a cover.

The thing that made me feel quite terrible.

To be honest, I put pictures about different top universities in the Canada and UK originally on the box. However, the laser cutting couldn’t draw complicated pictures. As a result, you could only see a little bit pictures on my box!

I also made some other fridge magnets. They didn’t have clear university pictures as well. Here is an example.

My feelings– what I learned from today’s experience

For my interests

Generally speaking, on the technical level, I had learned the exact way how laser cutting operating. I was surprised that how precise the laser cutting is–the box I made was as good as the handicraft boxes the shops sold. It may boost my comprehension further about engineering–Tell you the truth, I loved handicrafts, and todays’ experience may let me decide to learn engineering in the university. (I decided to learn either Chemistry or Business before.)

For my faults

During today’s event, I didn’t consider about how precise the laser cutting could reach. As a result, I didn’t make a fancy box with different universities’ pictures. (And I wasted some materials as well.) It taught me a lesson that I should think twice before doing something. This may also explain why I made some stupid choices before. I couldn’t change the history, but the thing is that, I could learn how to behave better from my daily life.