CNC Mini Projects
Introduction
For my ME318 computer aided product creation class, I created two small projects in addition to my larger final project LFC-1. You can see LFC-1, a large format camera, here. On this page, I will highlight the ball maze and bottle opener that I designed for this class.
Bird Strike - Ball Maze
Design: using the CNC allows you to machine to precise depths. Inspired by this ability, I wanted to have a ball maze to took advantage of multiple depths and the possibilities this allowed for. I had the idea to use multiple size balls with the potential for balls to have intersecting paths and at different depths. I decided to have both a single large ball and many small balls which block the path of the larger ball.
Objective: to win this game, there are two tasks that need to be accomplished. Firstly, you need to move the larger ball from one end of its diagonal track to the other. Along the way, the smaller balls will block your path. After this is accomplished, you must get each of the smaller balls to each of their respective divots. This is made more difficult by the fact that each small ball has a ramp inclined away from the central valley. This requires considerably more precision and patience.
A Light Brew. - Campy Bottle Opener
For this mini project, our class was asked to design a bottle opener with a “campy” aesthetic. In addition to this, the bottle opener needed to be made of mild steel. For my final design, I wanted to make a dongle. Initially I had planned to use a phone’s power jack or headphone jack to illuminate an LED, but realizing the electronic restrictions, decided to embed a small watch battery inside a 3D printed base. Plugging in the headphone jack into a phone illuminates a small white LED inside the device which shine onto the prying blade of the bottle opener.
Below is an earlier render of the product with the “active” light instead of the light slot cut into the steel. I will be added more photos of this product and its creation very soon!