Idea to Creation Process
My idea my maze was to basically make it a rectangle and look at an online example and go from there. All the sketches in my notebook were based off of things that I found online. As it turns out though, making the maze with your own ideas is a lot more fun, which is what I ended up doing. There was really no "blueprint" for me, it was basically added on stuff I though looked good through the process until it was filled up enough with lines. Once completed on Inventor, I put it on Fusion 360 and went to work. The sheet was pretty straightforward and with some help from friends I got it done in no time.
Sketches
Recipe
After choosing my shape for being a rectangle, I opened up Inventor and went to work on my maze. I traced my outline of my maze then extruded it to .75 inches. After completing the base then I got into the meat and tatters of it. I went through and created the maze with my ideas and it was a blast. Once completed, I saved my maze to Inventor and opened up Fusion 360. Considering we were given step by directions on how to do our maze in Fusion 360, all I had to do was follow the steps and it was smooth sailing from there. Fusion 360 was used to make sure the dimensions was correct for my maze and that it ran correctly on the router when ready. Next, I saved to a g code that way it would correspond with my flash drive. I also lined up the router with my center point that I created that way it the router would cut out my maze correctly. Finally after my maze was cut out, I had to engrave my name and class hour on it as well. This is done by going into Illustrator and typing in my name and class hour, then creating outlines and changing the color to RGB Blue so that it would work on the laser. Once completed I headed down to the laser, and finished it up.
Final Product
Screenshots of Router
Screenshots Inventor Fusion 360
Summary
For this being the first time for me using the CNC Router ever, there are things that went well and things that I definitely need to improve on. Everything up to using the Router I though went pretty well, nothing really slowed me down from getting to that part, but once I started using the Router, that took a pretty good chunk of time to finish. I feel as though if I were to do this project again, the same exact thing would happen. I would cruise through Inventor and Fusion 360, but then run into a roadblock once I started using the Router. Thankfully I had classmates and Mrs.Proctor help make the process a lot easier with the Router. All in all, while this project presented struggles and triumphs, I would definitely do this again.