Hi all,
I’ll be running my first formal workshop in regards to the laser cutter this weekend, entitled
Introduction to 2D Design for Laser Cutting
from 12:00 PM (noon), and will take between one and two hours to complete, depending on how quickly everyone get’s through everything.
This course will be ran again in the following weeks, so if you cannot attend this weekend, don’t worry.
DISCLAIMER:
It’s been quite a long time since I last ran this course in a professional setting, so to account for anything I may have overlooked or other such inefficiencies, this course will be ran at no cost to the attendees.
I will run this again in the future with a potentially more refined curriculum, however, there may be a cost associated, simply to cover the cost of materials.
It is up to you if you wish to attend the course this weekend at no cost with the chance of some inefficiencies, or again in a week or so with all the road bumps ironed out, however at a small cost to cover materials.
A five dollar donation per visit to MHV if you are not already a community contributor is appreciated, however in this case, isn’t mandatory.
(Some of you may have already attended one of my sessions, in which I covered how to create a customised keyring, if you have already attended such a session then this one will be identical, however more formal. I will soon be running a course, “Introduction to 3D Design for Laser Cutting”, so hold tight for that)
For those interested in attending this course for the first time, I will now cover some of the curriculum and details.
(If you are interested in attending, please commend in this thread so I can gauge interest and prepare sufficient materials)
Intro:
This course will be an introduction to 2D vector design, allowing you to create your own digital designs in 2D, then cut them on a laser cutter. No prior design experience is required, however a proficiency with computers will greatly ease your ability to follow along.
At the end of the course, your design will be cut out on our laser cutter and the resulting piece will be yours to keep.
(Not the laser cutter, you don’t get to take that)
If anyone so wishes, you may remain at MHV and create further designs to be cut, and I will stick around and assist until everyone’s ready to leave, however I’d suggest you may prefer to go home, sleep on everything you have learned, work on some designs, then come back on either Tuesday or Wednesday Night to have them cut.
Additional sheets of material will be available for you to use on the day, however a cost may be associated with their use ($0.50 to $3 per 300x200mm sheet, depending on the material)
For anyone under the age of 18, our usual policy applies (A parent or Guardian must be present at all times).
Curriculum
The session will be split into multiple segments for ease of learning, at the start of each segment I will give a live demonstration that you will be able to follow along with, followed by me personally helping anyone who’s got stuck on something, or needs to see something repeated, and once everyone’s caught up, we will continue on to the next segment.
All segments will be available as pre-recorded instructional videos that mirror the curriculum of the session, so if you fall behind, want something for future reference, or simply wish to repeat a segment, you may do so.
(You will be able to bulk-download all instructional videos at the end of the session)
Segments will cover the following topics:
- Basic Setup, Access to Resources, and Installation of Inkscape
- Setting up your Workflow
- Getting to know Inkscape
- Drawing and modifying shapes
- Importing Images, and Converting them to Vector Graphics.
- Explanation and Manipulation of Vector Graphics
- Preparing a Design for Laser Cutting
- A quick summary of everything we’ve done
- Cutting all the Designs
Requirements:
Please bring your own Laptop or other portable computer able to run the Inkscape Vector Design Program, Available for download on Windows, macOS, and Linux Here.
WiFi networking will allow you to access additional resources, as well as the above mentioned instructional videos for future reference, because sharing USB Drives in this day and age is just icky (and some of us don’t have USB ports anymore).
If you will use a device running the Windows operating system, installers will be provided on-site, however it is preferable for you to have pre-installed Inkscape and made sure it runs before attending the session.
If you will use a device running macOS X, please install a copy before attending the session, as installation on-site may be difficult
(If you’re installing through a package manager or just by downloading a DMG, keep in mind you’ll need to install XQuartz, available for download Here, before installing Inkscape.
After installing XQuartz, you will need to either log out and back in, or restart your device before Inkscape will function, else Inkscape may appear to start, however you will not see a window on your screen.)
We will have both installers for XQuartz and Inkscape on-site, however installing both may take some time so, if at all possible, please install beforehand.
If you will use a device running Linux or Unix (with the exception of macOS), you probably already know what you’re doing and have ran “[package manager of choice] install inkscape” before even getting to this section, but if not, please have Inkscape installed on your device before attending the session.
I’ll have a couple installer packages available, however I cannot guarantee compatibility with your distro, and compiling from source may set the class back slightly.
If you’ve got Arch running on a octa core i9 and want to show off, that’s your prerogative, but if you end up breaking xorg.conf while doing so I’m gonna start the class without you.
In Summary
The course will be [this] Saturday, the 25th of May, starting 12PM Midday, running for between one and two hours.
There will be no cost associated with this course as I don’t want to charge for a session I haven’t run in years, however future versions of this course may require a small fee.
If you’re interested, please comment in this thread to show interest.
Bring a laptop with Inkscape installed and tested.
I’ll see you there.