October 31, 2007
Pumpkin Carving with a Laser Cutter
Posted by elkaim at October 31, 2007 9:51 PM
About two weeks before Halloween, I asked one of our more enterprising graduate students if he thought that the laser cutter would cut through a pumpkin. The student in question took one look at me and said, "Oh, you know we are going to find out!"
Maybe thirteen or fourteen pumpkins later, he had used the laser cutter to build essentially a rolling rotisserie rack to hold the pumpkin and rotate it as the laser scanned back and forth (keeping the laser close to and perpendicular to the surface, as well as flipping the image).
Among the many things discovered were (1) Etching effectively flays the pumpkin flesh, (2) You need very high power settings to pierce all the way through the pumpkin, and (3) It is much better to open and seed the pumpkin before using the laser cutter to make intricate carvings in it.
The end result was perhaps the world's most expensive pumpkin carving arrangement, but one which can produce carvings with exquisite precision (as seen by the monogram above). Someday, the lab is going to have to figure out how to capitalize on such innovation, but for now I present you with the video, showing the cutting in action.