Live Fast, Die Old

On Friday I had machine inductions, including using the laser cutter, sonic welders, spot machines and tape dispensers ! All of the technology actually amazed me, I knew Coventry had all of these available on the course as thats what really stood out to me when applying, but i was so excited to finally be able to use them! Its all part of our project where im creating a pattern based on skulls, but ofcourse we can choose what we like to use and also use them throughout the rest of the time at university.

First of all I had a lesson on the laser cutting machine, we were shown the computer programmes for making simple shapes as this is what we were doing in the class, making a 'button' to test out and experiment to see what we could produce. We were also told that creating patterns in illustrator we would then be able to put them into this programme, im quite excited by this as there was lots of examples of complex and intricate patterns in the laser cutting room and im hoping for this project we will be able to really push ourselves and maybe begin to experiment on illustrator to produce a high quality pattern for our garments ! For the class however we were just doing the simple task as mentioned previously of producing an individual personalised button, a quick and simple task just to get used to the software and machine, in our class there was about 11 of us and we all went through the laborious stage of trying to figure out one by one how to make a button that didnt look completely awful.. there were many different ways you could play around with shapes, such as creating indentions to create indepth patterns and also cutting out multiple shapes within your shape and adding text onto it. I decided to create quite a simple button circular in shape with stars cut out round the edge and smaller stars in the middle as the button holes, also with concentric circles indented into the button throughout, I wasnt too hopeful for the outcome as it sounded pretty much as bad as it looked on the computer screen in front of me when i'd finished. Some people did really fancy attempts such as frogs and love hearts whilst others did humorous buttons like 'my name is..', however once we had all drawn out buttons on the screen, our teacher sized them down and put them in the correct format to be cut out and we chose our colour plastic.. Red! We then turned the laser cutter on and waited for the end result ! I was amazed when they came out they looked so clean cut and precise, although mine looked fussy and overwhelming in pattern on the screen when it came out of the machine it was so interesting to look at, everyone seemed equally as happy as me at the outcome and it really excited me for the prospects of this project !! I love having machine inductions because it gives you a chance to see how everything works and get a chance to do something basic and play around rather than say having an idea of your final design to cut out before youve even had a chance to see how/what the machines can do! Also Scarlett (our lecturer) said that many universitys dont allow students to laser cut themselves so im so glad we can, although her stories of fires did scare me a little.. im happy I get to be in control of the process from start to finish. By that i mean i get to look at skulls, sketch skulls, develop patterns from these sketches and then produce these patterns and then make a garment from these patterns ! I love the whole process !