Mini Cactus/Aloe Vera Plant Trestle

For my project, I made a plant trestle for a client, who is my mom. My Mom needed a way to hold up her plant because it keeps on falling, causing it to start dying. One interesting thing that I thought of/noticed was, that there are many of these “plant” holders yet none of them seem to be the right one, especially for indoors. So I made my own.

• Cardboard (3mm)
• Wood (6mm)
• Any wood/waterproof sealant
• Glowforge Laser printer
• Tinkercad
• Glowforge

When I first talked to my mom about the project, I already had some ideas made up and did some research on the side. First I researched "plant holder" and continued to look at already existing designs and our plans and figuring out which one was best. I wrote my thoughts on paper and had come up with the design and what aspects are needed to apply to my design. For example, dimensions, color, and customization. My mom didn't want anything too special so we decided to go for a simple honeycomb design.

Once I had come up with the idea and the design, I then put that into tinker cad. After I made it to the right measurements, it was time for printing. To do this I inserted my design as an STL. and put it in the laser cutting program called "Glowforge". Once I do that, I cut it out with the laser cutter and used the material cardboard. This was to make sure all my dimensions were correct and that the design had been to my, and my client's liking.

After finishing my second prototype, it was time for the final prototype. When doing your final, you have to make sure everything is outstanding and has no mistakes. For my final, I printed it out again, making no changes to the dimension of it, or adding any customization. When doing this, I went back to the site "Glowforge" and imputed my STL. file. I did cut it out again but instead of cardboard, I replaced it with wood. After cutting it out I put sealant at the end of it so that it would rot when the plant was getting watered. I showed my client (my mom) and she was very happy and proud of it.

Overall, this project was really fun and I enjoyed every step of it. Hope you learned something new and if you do try it out, that's awesome! Thank you for checking it out!

Picture above: Before and After