Jellyfish and Laser

In the very beginning, I was highly impressed by the great glass work made by Northrop.

As a result, I want to make a color piece which looks like this work but is made of acrylic. Since I love jellyfish, I want to make a pretty jellyfish windbell that can shine under the light.

My plan is to combine several pieces of acrylic with glue, and cut them in the shape of broken glass. Then cut the other pure red acrylic in the same shape of broken glass, and then exchange several pieces of these two to make two flat and colorful jellyfish heads. Then use slim sticks to make the jellyfish legs.

But I was stopped by the shop staff, who told me that I can’t put the combination into the laser cut machine because the glue can not be used with a laser.

I am extremely frustrated. Because this is totally my main design and the reason why I want to make this jellyfish. But both the professor and the shop staff said I can’t do it, so I changed my design to a red jellyfish instead. We have to use the laser for this assignment. Well I will try the colorful combination one later without the laser anyway.

Then I cut out the jellyfish with pure red acrylic. Unfortunately, the dimension was wrong for the first laser cut, and I have only one piece of acrylic that is big enough to cut the head of a jellyfish. So I decide to keep cutting on this red acrylic, and see how it will look if I just use glue to connect the pieces.

The mistake with dimension leave a ugly scar on the jellyfish even if I glue them together. Since this is the only thing I can do, I decide to use some other small acrylic to cover it later.

Then comes the leg of the jellyfish. For decoration, I cut some circle. Then, I cut the shining acrylic into several slim sticks. Then I use the bender to twist the stick. The twist leads to a pretty curve on the stick. Quite satisfied by this.