The third fabrication assignment focuses on measuring tools and using the laser cutter. I continued my series of absurd and user unfriendly objects and made a pencil holder that holds exactly one pencil.
Part of the reason why I chose to build this project is the fact that I only own one pen(cil) at a time, since it makes me accountable to not losing it. The current one happens to be a Stabilo Point 88. I measured it and decided that a reasonable height for the holder would be 5in. Having worked with the laser cutter and acrylic before, I decided to be economical with my materials, and used a pre-owned 1/8in thick sheet of plywood. Going further down the economy rabbit hole, I came up with a design that would waste very little material: concentric circles, stacked on top of each other.
The figure shows 40 circles (the amount needed in order to achieve a height of 5in when stacking them on top of each other,) as well as a spiral-looking pattern—every layer got marked with the point where it should be aligned with the previous and next layers, in order to create a 3-dimensional spiral upon stacking.
