Laser Cutting Stories: What Our Team Created #2

Posted By Capucine Lonjon on Sep 28, 2016 | 0 comments

Last week, we showed you what 3 of our employees were doing with our new laser cutting service. Today, we are continuing this series with 3 more projects: two from our employees, and one from our CEO!

Creative and insightful projects are what enable us to constantly improve our service: adapting our material offer, giving more precise design advice, and thinking about how to combine laser cutting and 3D printing. We are very lucky that our team members are also enthusiastic users of our services!  

Today, they’re giving you their experience. They explained how the service we implemented works, particularly the interactive tools of our platform, and how it accelerated their learning of the technology.

Read the other stories!

Laser Cutting Stories: what our team created #1

Laser Cutting Stories: what our team created #3

Today, Clément Moreau, our CEO, Simon Wenger, engineer project manager in charge of laser cutting, and Enzo Mauricci, one of our technician, speak about what they’ve made thanks to laser cutting.

‘Democratization for laser cutting’ –  Clément, CEO

Sculpteo: In a few words, could you present your project? For how long have you been thinking of developing this project

Clément Moreau: When I’m not at Sculpteo, I’m with my family, the first guinea pigs for my technological experiments!  I’m lucky that I have a garden, and I wanted to create for my three kids a little birdhouse for black-capped chickadees. This cute bird that has kind of a black tie. It’s been a while I’m thinking of doing one. We have some other wood-made birdhouse in our garden. I wanted to try an acrylic birdhouse ! What would be funnier for the kids to see the chickadee eat the grains in the little house? What’s more, thanks to laser cutting, I can create a kit for the kids to do the construction themselves. Not only is it playful, it is also educational !

S: What’s your favourite feature of Sculpteo’s laser cutting service?

C.M. : In the same way that we wanted 3D printing to be accessible to all, we wish today that everyone has the ability to take advantage of laser cutting for their professional and personal projects. It is the biggest strength of our service we created for which we work every day: it is simple, intuitive and available directly online, which makes the service accessible to all.

S: How has the service helped you with your project?

C.M. : Once I had the idea in mind, it was easy to create the 2D file. The accessibility to the technology that our service offers is undoubtedly a benefit. Admittedly, I already know very well the laser cutting technology, but for this project, I didn’t have to bother with the machine parameters, nor to assist in my parts being cut. All was taken in charge by our system and our technicians ! My children were very happy with the results. So less worrisome operations: the only operation I had to lead was designing the 2D file ! Of course, with respect to the design guidelines you can find on our website.

S: What are the advantages for you of an online platform like ours?

C.M. : We designed the platform for it to be as user-friendly as possible. Therefore simple and intuitive! Remembering speed. In a few clicks, you can design, order and receive your parts… a democratization of laser cutting, to create even more objects !

S: Have you thought of any hybrid projects, that mix laser cutting and 3D Printing?

C.M. :  Yes! The last couple of years, I collected old music instruments, sometimes in a bad way. At the moment, I have in mind to repair the mechanism for a harpsichord; simple and clever, the mechanism is impressive. In two parts, the head contains a little  strummer. It grabs the string when going up, which makes it react and resonate; but when going down, the strummer tilts backwards, leaving the string without resonating.

I think I will make the first part that holds the strummer in acrylic and the strummer in 3D printing.

S: Any tips for our customers?

C.M. :  Have fun! For your professional projects as well as for your personal ones, laser cutting offers a wide range of possibilities for creation and innovation.

‘Diversify your material uses for amazing effects’ – Simon, engineer project manager

Sculpteo: In a few words, could you present your project? For how long have you been thinking of developing this project?

Simon Wenger: To launch our laser cutting service, I was in charge of choosing our machinery, materials and discussing with suppliers. I was eager to test the technology as soon as we received the laser cutting machine at Sculpteo ! A very good friend of mine is an architect. I had followed very closely the creation of her final project at school. It represents the lands around the Palace of Versailles, near Paris. I asked her if I could use her models to cut and do it myself as a test. She was very proud and gave me her files. I adapted them into laserable 2D files and cut the layers of cardboard. As you can see, the basins and river are in blue acrylic.

S: What’s your favourite feature of Sculpteo’s laser cutting service?

S.W.: Our interactive online interface allows to easily modify the design’s configuration and the materials you choose. You can see the final price changing in real time, whether you choose to cut, vector engraving or raster engraving.

No need to bother with an estimate, thanks to an interactive calculation.

S: How could you say Sculpteo redefined the laser cutting service ?

Short lead time is definitely an advantage in our service. Everybody wants his project to move forward and become reality quickly. With Sculpteo in charge of your laser cuts, you have the possibility to iterate quickly to see your project evolve. Within only 8 days, you could order once, receive the parts, test them, check the design, order for the second time and receive your new parts!

S: What are the advantages for you of an online platform like ours?

In only a few clicks, I can order my parts. And in a few days, receive them at home. For me, it’s amazing how easy you can access the laser cutting technology. My architect friend told me she had one at school but it is not always available when students need it  and once they leave school, it is even more complicated to access this technology She said our service was undoubtedly very convenient for architects.

S: Have you thought of any hybrid projects, that mix laser cutting and 3D Printing?

Models are even greater with the help of these two technologies. When superimposing successive layers of cardboard, you can achieve very precise landforms. If you diversify the materials, you have different colors and textures, which makes watercourses and valleys appear. 3D printing brings some relief to models. It is a very well appropriate solution to render houses and vegetation for example.

S: Any tips for our customers?

Beware of raster engraving, it can become very expensive! Although it is very beautiful, the price is counted on the time spent. You can easily use vector engraving for small and thin details. Most of the times, vector engraving the outline is enough for all your elements to be sufficiently visible.

‘I see many creative projects! Accessibility is definitely a good point’ – ENZO, technician

Sculpteo: In a few words, could you present your project? For how long have you been thinking of developing this project?

Enzo Mauricci: Do you know this game called the game? It is a mental game where the objective is to avoid thinking about The Game itself. Thinking about The Game constitutes a loss, which must be announced each time it occurs. It is impossible to win most versions of The Game. Depending on the variation of The Game, the whole world, or all those aware of the game, are playing it all the time. Tactics have been developed to increase the number of people aware of The Game and thereby increase the number of losses.

There are three commonly reported rules to The Game:

– Everyone in the world is playing The Game. (Sometimes narrowed to: ‘Everybody in the world who knows about The Game is playing The Game’, or alternatively, ‘You are always playing The Game.’) A person cannot choose to not play The Game; it does not require consent to play and one can never stop playing.

– Whenever one thinks about The Game, one loses.

– Losses must be announced. This can be verbal, with a phrase such as ‘I just lost The Game’, or in any other way: for example, via Facebook. Some people may have signals or expressions that remind others of The Game.

Strategies focus on making others lose The Game. Common methods include saying ‘The Game’ out loud or writing about The Game on a hidden note, in graffiti in public places, or on banknotes.

I have long thought about an original way to announce to all people they lost the game. Our laser cutting service offered me a solution!

Imagine you go get your mail and you come across one of these plates with the message “You lost.” Or, you will use a paper printing service and when you go to press the button to print, you come across this plate. What would be great is that each person may subsequently hide the plate found somewhere else to lose another person.

S: What’s your favourite feature of Sculpteo’s laser cutting service?

E.M: It’s a new service we have on Sculpteo’s website. I didn’t know this technology before and I wanted to try it to experiment our service. I chose to engrave ‘You lost’ (in French: ‘t’as perdu’) in acrylic of different colors. I really like the fact that I can both engrave and cut so easily. For translucent acrylic, it is nice to engrave the words upside down, so that you can read it in the right way, through the thickness of the acrylic part.

S: How has the service helped you with your project?

E.M: This project was quite funny for me. When I had the idea in head, I quickly designed the part and I was very happy to receive the parts 2 days later. I cut a dozen of them, in three different colors, it was an easy way to make elaborate jokes to my colleagues!

S: What are the advantages for you of an online platform like ours?

E.M: It’s very convenient to access such a platform. I’m technician here at Sculpteo and I’ve experimented how it is practical for 3D printing already. It makes the technology accessible for all. I’ve had many projects go through my hands and I’m amazed by the variety of the projects and creativity our clients have. It is also very fast, and many projects have the possibility to be iterated and become better and better each time we print it. So far, it’s been the same with laser cutting projects!

S: Have you thought of any hybrid projects, that mix laser cutting and 3D Printing?

E.M: I should think of it! It is actually quite a good idea, I may think of another tricky game!

S: Any tips for our customers?

E.M: I really recommend this new laser cutting service, for professionals, hobbyists, and curious outsiders. You will surely enjoy even better your projects!

Read the other stories!

Laser Cutting Stories: what our team created #1

Laser Cutting Stories: what our team created #3

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