UCL has an array of great facilities open to both students and faculty, and one of them is FabLab. a work studio in which you can create anything from laser prints to 3D prints and other creative things. I haven’t had the chance to use the FabLab yet, but we were able to get an introduction to it. Though I haven’t used the FabLab before, I do have experience with woodwork, laser work, and other sorts of work from my prior school in Japan.
Much of what FabLab has to offer allows us to go to great creative lengths, but it is free of charge for school projects and costs a little for personal projects. However, in this introduction course, we were able to make keychains free of charge to practice how to print on wood and laser, engrave text, and other things.
The design of the keychain starts in Illustrator. We first had to set our artboard to the right dimensions for it to actually be a keychain measuring 10cm by 5 cm. I wanted to utilise all the space that was available to me but also create something that meant something to me. I settled on a surfboard, as I love to surf, and to engrave my nickname KJ because that is my identity, but not the identity I have at this school, along with all the places I have lived.
In order for it to print, we had to outline the actual cut-out piece in red to let the printer know to cut it all the way through and letter blue to engrave it fully. We then had to outline it, export the artboard, and put it on a USB stick.
We then took turns printing it out individually with the staff in the FabLab, where they took their time to explain each step in the process. After printing one of the staff recommended that next time if I wanted to engrave small lettering that I shouldn’t have the blue outline as it blurs out the letters too much. I knew I got confused when adding the blue outlines as I thought blue outlines had to be on every single text, however it was just an indication for the laser printer on how much to engrave into the wood.
The final result was an awesome keychain that I still have on my set of keys today. Knowing how easy it was to create this and that I could use scrap pieces of wood free of charge meant I could get creative for free. Perhaps in the future I can use the other parts of the FabLab to get more creative, either for personal projects or for school projects.
Leave a Reply