COASTER

Understand and Define

protection for the table

needs a good thickness, so that the heat of the liquid, which is in the cup, does not damage the table.Or that the liquid does not come through the coaster, onto the table.

size of it should be big enough to put a cup or a glass with average circumference (9 - 10 cm) on it.

should include a bottom part, on which you can put the cup / glass.

Narrowing

We want to use it, so we design it for ourselves.

To put drinks in cups or glasses on it.

It protects the underground (for example a table).

The coaster will solve the problem of having stains or burdes spaces on a flat surface (for example a table or counter)

It has to be stable enough to put a drink or a pot on it.

The object on the coaster should not be too hot if the coaster itself is made of plastic, because it could melt. And if it is made of plastic it should not lay on a warm surface (on a stove).

If we laser cut it, it’s probably a good idea to cut it out of wood, because wood cannot melt.

Ideate

Materials:

wood (by laser cutting),

Cork (by laser cutting)

PLA (by 3D printing)

Plastic

Cardboard

Shapes:

Square

Circle

Star

Flower

Heart

Snowflake

Shape of Salt Spring Island

Moon

Sun

With / without frame

Engravings:

Names

Spicals

Quote

Circlas

Pattern

Symbols

date

3D shapes:

Open flower and in the middle space for a drink

What do we want:

Flower with five, round leaves

Material: Wood for laser cutting, PLA for 3D printing

On the edge from the middle circle to the leaves there is a circle which is deeper than the other surface.

Thickness 0.5cm

Radius of the middle circle 4.5cm

width of the groove is 0.3cm / depth 0.2cm

On leaves little shapen (triangles and rectangles) as engravings / on the middle circle a maple leaf

Thickness for engravings (shapes and maple leaf) 0.1 cm / depth 0.1 cm

Prototype

Feedback: the feedback from classmate #1 was that our design looks good. Classmate #2 and #3 said, it looks good and seems to work for its job.

Also the feedback of Ms FitzZaland is positive

Nobody said something that we should change.

We had to change the shapes in the leaves because it didn’t work for 3D printing. We decided to change it into half circles.

Testing 3D printed coaster

Test: let it fall from the table to the ground. It has damage, and did well on this test. Test: try to break it. Bends a little bit, but stays stable. It didn’t break.

The design doesn’t get damaged easily.

Feedback of the printed design: classmate #1 said that the lines and little mistakes from the printing process are normal, and seems to work. Our teacher said, this is stable, and good.

Next time we will spray hairspray on the printing bed so that the design sticks better to it. We also make changes in the slicing process so that the little lines and mistakes go away.

Testing laser cutted coaster

The coaster of wood is stable enough so when we tried to break it it only bent a bit but didn't break.Even if it falls from a higher surface it stays stable and didn’t break. And it works. The object on there is stable.

We want to change the way we laser cut it. Our goal is to get the engravings at the right spot in the flower shape.

Make

For our final 3D printed process we changed the settings in the slicing process. The top layer is three times thicker than before. This made a difference. The small spaces on the edges of the grooves are  almost disappeared. The surface is more even. It stuck throughout the printing process to the bed because we put hairspray on it.

Share

We wanted to design a coaster, which can be 3d printed and laser cutted. The designing and first 3D printing part were the easiest steps of making our coaster. First we had the idea to design the leaves of the flower differently, but then we decided to make three semicircles instead of the different shapes. It worked better that way. The printing, with the 3d Printer, itself was easy and  uncomplicated.

The laser cutting was difficult because first we couldn’t figure out why the laser cutter was only cutting and not engraving. Then we deleted all parts except for the maple leaf in the PDF. We expanded and joined the parts of the maple leaf and then the engraving of it worked well. We did the same thing for the outer half circles on the leaves. This worked again. It is difficult to place the engravings on the right part in the design. So our maple leaf and the half circles aren’t exactly on the right spot. That is also the reason why we decided only to engrave the maple leaf and the outer half circles and not the other designs, which are on our 3D printed coaster.

In 3D printing the only thing that we changed is the slicing process and we spray hairspray on the printing bed, so that it sticks better to it. For the laser cutting process we could cut and engrave at the same time. So that all shapes are at the right spot.

Our end product is a good solution because we could achieve our goals, to 3D print and to laser cut a coaster.

The work together went well. Both of us did approximately the same amount of work.