This project was assigned in my Introduction to Materials and Mechanical Design course in Fall 2020 with the goal of becoming proficient in CAD and laser cutting. I drew my inspiration from hearing an accordian in the traditional Colombian vallenato music I was listening to. I thought about how the accordian can be expanded and contracted, so I wanted to apply this sort of movement to my project. That's why I decided to go with a collapsible bowl.
I used Solidworks to design the base of my bowl as well as the spiraled bowl itself. I used Solidworks instead of Fusion 360 because exporting the file to .DXF to the laser cutting machine in Solidworks had less glitches. I designed the bowl to be expandle by having the 2D circle be cut into a spiral so that it gets that accordian effect. That way, it can mimic an actual bowl.
I learned the nuances of calibrating the laser cutting machine, as well as indicating how far to edge into the wood I was using. An important lesson I learned was to frequently check the laser lenses, as smoke accumulates in the printer and can easily damage the lenses. They're about $250 each, so it's not cheap.
Here is my final design!
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