Laser Cut Paper Heart

My laser cut paper heart form process

I decided I wanted to make something that wasn't a basic geometric shape, but not too tricky either since I have no experience with a laser cutter prior to this class. I ended up going with a three dimensional heart because its not only a simpler form that isn't a basic geometric shape, but also very cute and something I won't just throw away after its made.

Designing my form was pretty straightforward since I had a good understanding of what sides were going to line up, so I knew what sides needed to have the same length. After my sketch was done I struggled figuring out why it wouldn't let me extrude my shape, and found the coincident tool very helpful to fix this issue as it allowed me to connect all of the points. I was then able to extrude my shape. After extruding it I easily transferred it into illustrator and drew lines where I knew the engravings were going to go.

I struggled the most with figuring out how to connect to edges since I opted out of doing tabs on my design. After experimenting with the tape I realized it would definitely look better if I used tabs because the tape made it hard of rme to smoothly line up the edges.

My final product had some open edges because of the tape but overall I was happy with my final design.

Reading Jackson’s book gave me a solid starting point for figuring out how to make my foldable paper heart work. The steps in Chapter 2 made the whole net building process way less intimidating. Once I laid it out in Fusion and Illustrator, I actually felt confident that it would fold up the way I imagined. Chapter 5 was super helpful too, especially the part about Click Locks. I attempted to try a simple lock along the top curve so the heart could stay closed without glue, but decided that using tape would be better for my simple design. Chapter 6 was more of a creative spark than a set of instructions, it showed me how you can change the rules a little, which inspired me to make the heart feel softer and less boxy. Overall, the reading helped me stay organized while still being creative.