A few days ago I saw this and got really excited:
#twithaca this friday, come make paper creations on the laser cutter @IthacaGen http://t.co/O32IAEIe10
— Xanthe Matychak (@xanthm) December 1, 2014
Way earlier in the year I backed Ithaca Generator‘s IndieGogo project and have been following along with close interest ever since. My friend and former co-worker Leon was advocating for this makerspace years ago, but this my first visit.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to laser cut when I got there (and I arrived late) but I had an old Christopher Mackenzie vector illustration that I thought would have been perfect. As luck would have it, that file was nowhere to be found. Then I wondered what one of my typefaces (selfish, I know) would cut well. I realized that the font I made with my kid (Uncombined) would be perfect for a simple type sample, at a few sizes. I did have to modify the “o” and give a little extra spacing to some characters.
Then I handed my Illustrator file over to one of the kind volunteers working open house. The vector file had to be hollow with a tiny stroke (I think .001 in) which is the path that the laser would follow. I was already having a lot of fun at this point, but when the laser started to cut the blue paper we loaded in, my mind was blown. See for yourself.
