This week’s assignment was to use make an enclosure. I decided to make a box for my PComp project this week, making a theremin.

The theremin

I wanted to use standoff screws (and acrylic) but had trouble tracking down the screws, so I did a hack-y version using nuts and bolts. After tracking down the supplies, I made the Illustrator file to laser cut the top and bottom pieces. After using the laser cutter for the first time last week, you'd figure I'd be an expert at it by now, but I managed to make the silly mistake of not cutting the board large enought to fit the Arduino/breadboard and still have spacing for the screws.

Board is too small!

Thankfully I had an extra piece of acrylic in a lovely tiffany blue color, so I was able to revise the dimensions of the Illustrator sketch and re-cut the acrylic. One thing that struck me during the design process was how arbitrary all of my measurements seemed. For example, I wasn't sure how far from the edge of the board the screw holes should be, so I just made up something that looked aesthetically pleasing. Similarly, after I cut the first board too short, I wasn't sure how much extra space was the recommended amount for such a scenario.

Ariel shot of theremin