Intro to Fab - Enclosures

Enclosures are my worst enemy. That is why it took me a long time to figure out what to make for this assignment. I was stumped on how I could make a thoughtful enclosure without an actual project. I was afraid to be too ambitious where, instead of focusing on the enclosure, I would focus too much on finding the right screws and figuring out how to mount each component. That is why I moved on from my initial idea, which was to create a pedestal-like enclosure that housed a motor, to a more playful enclosure. After looking through components on the floor, I came across buttons and potentiometer caps. This is how I decided to create the Sandwich Maker as enclosures can loosely be seen as a sandwich.

I began by measuring the buttons, potentiometer, and screws with the caliper. Using these measurements I created my illustrator file shown above. I then prototyped with scrap cardboard to make sure the screws and each component fit. The holes in the first cut were too small, and I increased the diameter by 0.05 inches. With the adjustments, the components fit the second cardboard perfectly. Knowing my prototype works, I cut my piece of acrylic and made sure everything fit in there as well. I then took off the protective layer and painted in the etched words. After fitting the button and potentiometer, I realized that the potentiometer made it hard to see the words “toast level” because the acrylic was clear, something I didn’t think about with the cardboard. Lastly, I screwed in the standoffs and put everything together. If I have time, I think I will change the length of the standoffs as it is needlessly long and to make it have more sandwhich-y proportions.