I would like to think I have a good amount of knowledge and experience with materials processing. I took metal shop in high school and with that I also took 3 years of wood shop. Wood shop taught me so much about processing materials and was a great class to learn how to use different machines and tools. I learned how to take a rough-cut piece of wood and process it down into a usable, square piece of material. Then turn that piece into whatever project we were making. My junior year project was a chess board where I took cherry and maple boards and processed them down into little squares, then glued them together into a border. I also have personal experience from doing projects around my house and at work both with metal and wood working. My personal favorite is metal working as I enjoy that metal can be bent and welded and molded into an infinite number of ways.
I have not had much experience with laser engraving before this assignment so this whole process was unfamiliar for me. I also am not a computer design wizard so designing the key chain online definitely was a challenge that I had to get used to. Once I understood the basic designing process on InDesign, I got a lot more comfortable with the program and really enjoyed designing my keychain. I feel like I learned InDesign the best by just experimenting with each tool and feature, but Professor Painter also helped with her demonstrations and tips. The laser engraver was super cool to see how precise it is and to see how what I designed on a computer became a real object. The engraver was my favorite part of the process
The biggest thing I learned was that online design can be associated with processing materials like wood and metal. I only thought about processing using machines in real life instead of online programs. It is cool to see how different processing for whatever can be one is making. I also would like to use the laser engraving again for other projects to design bigger things like wall decorations or desk pieces. I enjoyed this project through materials processing and would enjoy doing something just like it in the future.
