[Robotgroup] laser cutting (was: cardboard bots)

[Robert Carter]

On Jun 17, 2008, at 2:50 AM, Leslie Filip wrote:

> Hi Robert,
>
> Are you certain those machines will cut metals? Normally it takes a  
> special (read much more expensive) laser to even etch metal  
> directly, much less cut it.
>
> Les

Actually, no, I'm not... for some reason I had it in my mind that  
they could cut thin aluminum, but looking at the web page I see the  
materials on the approved list are "chipboard, paper, mdf, plywood,  
and acrylic. Other materials should be verified with the io staff  
prior to cutting". Nothing about aluminum. (Although getting back to  
the original issue, if it can handle paper then I imagine cardboard  
shouldn't be a problem.)

Maybe I just had the image of metal-cutting lasers in my head from  
seeing Master Pancake Theater riff on "Goldfinger" Saturday night. (I  
was going to include a link here to a youTube clip of the laser  
scene, the classic "Do you expect me to talk?" "No Mr. Bond, I expect  
you to die!" bit, but then I remembered we can't send HTML on the  
list. Ah well, you can imagine it I'm sure.)

-- Robert

-----
Robert Carter
Visual Resources Collection
School of Architecture
The University of Texas at Austin
rcarter at mail.utexas.edu