Coaster Playing Cards & Box - Design Tech Project

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In Design Tech, we've been working on a project which involves making coasters and a coaster holder. For my coasters, I created four different playing cards of different suits, and a coaster holder resembling a playing card box.



To make these, I first created the design on Adobe Illustrator. Then I used the laser cutter to cut out and engrave the coasters, which are made of acrylic. To make the coaster holder, I used the CNC router to carve out the multiple wood pieces and glued them together before engraving the design on the front and back using the laser cutter again. After lots of sanding and wood varnish, my project was done!

What I like most about my project is the design I created using the four playing card suits. I think it's cute and I tried to be creative with it.

The most challenging part of this project for me was learning how to use the laser cutter and CNC router. It's very easy to make a mistake and even though I have it figured out now, I ran into a lot of issues when I first started.

If I were to do this project again, I'd make sure that I'm using the laser cutter properly. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but on the back side of the coaster holder where I engraved something (I did the same engraving on both sides), the engraving is a lot deeper than I intended for it to be. I'd like to avoid that happening again. Also, the engraving on the front side is slightly off center.

Now that it's done, I'm excited to take it home and show it off to my parents. Hopefully next time we have guests over we'll get to use them!

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