City Coasters and Coaster Holder - Design Tech Project

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     For my coaster and coaster holder project, I made coasters that have different cities on each. The cities I chose are; St. Louis, Chicago, Austin, and Rome. When I was planning my project I wanted to incorporate something meaningful to me. I came up with the idea of making city skylines from cities that are important to me and my family. Rather than just using a pre-made skyline I decided to create my own skyline. For my coasters, the first thing I did was create my designs in Adobe Illustrator. After a very long process of designing my coasters in Adobe Illustrator, I was finally able to cut them out using the laser cuter. To make my coaster holder, I also used Adobe Illustrator. After I designed my coaster holder in Illustrator I uploaded my design to a website called Easel. After I uploaded my design to Easel I made some finishing touches and then I was able to cut out my coaster holder design using the CNC router. When both my coasters and coaster holder were done I sanded them both and I glued together the pieces of my coaster holder. Finally, the last step I had to complete was putting a wood finish on my coasters and coaster holder. 

    Something I like about my project is that it has a design that is meaningful to me and my family. I am also proud of myself for designing my coasters. Since I designed the city skylines myself the process was very long and tedious. Some of the buildings that I created had many very small details that I had to replicate. One of the most challenging things I encountered while making this project was definitely designing my coasters. Another challenge I faced happened later on in the process. After I had assembled my coaster holder I realized that my coasters were too big and wouldn't fit in my coaster holder so I had to resize my coasters and cut them out again. At the moment I am very happy with how my project came out. If I were to do this again something I might change is the cities. Now that I am done with my coasters I am planning to give them to my parents or grandparents because they will probably want to use them in the house. 











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