Project 1: Notebook Cover
As always, to start this project, I had to do a little thinking. I had to come up with things I like so that I could put them on the cover of my notebook. I decided to go with one of my favorite hobbies: fishing. I also had to come up with some text to engrave on the front. I am a huge fan of Tony Robbins, who is an author, speaker, and philanthropist. I chose a quote that reads "You don’t have to have a reason to feel good — you’re alive; you can feel good for no reason at all!" I feel like this quote perfectly states my mindset in life.
I started by making the two squares for the covers, both of which had to be 4.25*5.5" in size. After I had laid out the art board, I made a general design including the quote and the bass alongside it. In the end, I would have been cutting the fish out and engraving the text.
Next, I found more clipart of a northern pike, another fish you can find in Wisconsin, and are a lot of fun to pull in. I decided to put the bass and the pike side by side, and then rotated them 180 degrees for below the text. I also added two thick lines above and below the text, in order to give it a more clean look. Now it was time for the back cover. I didn't want it to be too complicated, since the front cover had a lot of detail. I decided to go with a engraved square surrounding my name, the year, and the two lines that I put in the exact same place on the front page. |
Project 2: Water Bottle
I think this project would have been really cool to see being done, I never would have thought to put a water bottle inside of a laser system in order to engrave it. For the design of the water bottle, I created a design for the Wisconsin Badgers basketball team, since I am a huge fan. I made it for next year's team since this season is already over.
The instructions required a 10*10" art board, so I created that and put my design right in the middle. I pulled some Wisconsin clipart from the web and placed it in my design, putting the text right below it.
The way that the design would have been engraved on the water bottle wouldn't have worked straight up. It would have needed to be rotated so that it would print right side up on the water bottle, so I rotated it 270 degrees. |
Project 3: Thingiverse
The last project required that we go online and find our own item to be cut out. Once the design is cut out, the pieces will be put together to make a 3D model of something. I chose to look on the website Thingiverse to find my item. After lots of looking, I really couldn't find much that could be laser printed, so from the very limited selection, I chose a Tie-Interceptor, a spacecraft from the Star Wars films. This was really the only thing that was appealing to me, since I am a fan of the films. From the website, you could download a bunch of files for the project, including pictures and files that you could put into Illustrator. Once I put the file into Illustrator and fit it onto the art board, there really wasn't much else to do.
What I Learned
Obviously, these are very tough times for everyone. No one expected this virus to come along and ruin everyone's lives, but we just have to keep going. I never thought that I wouldn't get to finish all of these exciting projects in IDEA, but it's just something I have to live with. I feel that I learned how to better manage myself outside of school, even though I will never get to see these projects getting made. This project also gave me a good sense of perseverance through these hard times.