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Grade Level
Join Nick and Bailey for a HUGE live print! They’ll share their Top 5 Tips for successful Passthrough printing.
Upper Elementary and above
Difficulty
Medium
Join Nick and Bailey for a HUGE live print! They’ll share their Top 5 Tips for successful Passthrough printing.
Duration
1 hour
Subjects
History English Language Arts Science Math Language
Standards
ISTE 1.6: Creative Communicator
Students choose the appropriate platforms and tools for meeting the desired objectives of their creation or communication.
ISTE 1.7: Global Collaborator
Vocab
Currency Coin Symbols
Licensing
Lesson for Download:
Overview
This project can be used for many different subject areas. It is a great project to do if you are low on material, as the final design can be a little more than an inch! The main focus of this lesson will be to have students create coins that represent themselves and their identity. However, as a history unit, students could use it to design currency for a civilization. It could be used as a unit where students design coins for characters in a novel. It could be made to commemorate a famous scientist or a math class could create a currency system that doesn’t operate on a base 10 system. The possibilities are endless.
Objective
Thematic Questions:
· What is important about currency? · What elements usually are present on a coin?
Materials:
· iPhone or digital camera · Computer with internet access · Subscription to Glowforge Pro design software · Medium Draftboard, whiteboard material from Lowes, any acrylic, plywood, or even cardboard would work.
Lesson Instructions:
Coin Research 1. Hand out coins to students and this lesson handout. Have students identify as many different elements of a coin as possible: round, copper or nickel, the profile of a person, a landmark, a latin phrase (E Pluribus Unum), an important motto or saying “In God We Trust”, the date, the value of the coin, the name of the country or area where the currency is used, etc. 2. Allow each student to design their own coin trying to incorporate as many of these values as possible. Let them sketch their designs on paper first.
Design:
- Have your subject stand in front of a white or single colored wall looking either to the left or the right. I just use my iPhone to take a quick picture and then I airdrop the image to my desktop.
- Go to www.remove.bg and upload the image that you just took. This will remove the background from the image. Once the background has been removed, click ‘download’
- Go to www.picsvg.com and click on the button that says ‘upload an image’. Select the photo that you just downloaded that has the background image removed. Scroll down on the page to see the image turned into an .svg file.Play around with the Filters on the dropdown menu until you find a filter that you like and then click the ‘download svg’ button.
- Navigate to app.glowforge.com and click ‘Create a new design’
- Click the Blue ‘+’ button in the center of the design screen.
- Then click ‘upload’
- Select the .svg file from your downloads on your device. The .svg will now be visible on the bed of the Glowforge. The image might have multiple pieces to it, as you can see this photo does with all of the many boxes on the design. To keep these elements together, you should group them. To group, with all of the pieces highlighted as you can see here, hold down the ‘control’ key and click on the image. A new control menu will pop up. Select ‘group’. Now, you can move this design around freely.
- Change the size of the image-
If you click on the image, you will notice that a little ruler button will appear in the lower left corner of the page. Click the ruler. A new window will appear and you will see the X and Y coordinates of where the image appears on the bed of the machine and the W and H (width and height) of the design. As you can see in this photo, the center of my image is 5.01 inches from the top of the build plate and 8.45 inches from the left of the machine. The width is 3.923 inches by 4.82 inches in height. This is much too big for a coin, so I will scale the design to be smaller - - most coins are an inch in height, so I’m going to change the height to .8 inches. (If the little chain is connected in the middle of the design, it will keep the aspect ratio locked.) Now the design is much smaller, so you can either zoom in at the top of the page where it reads 100% or, you can press ‘command’ and ‘plus’ to zoom in.
- Add in a circle for the outer edge of the coin. Click the ‘shape’ tool right next to the blue Plus button at the top of the page. This will add a circle. You can then click on the circle and drag out the edges to give you enough room for text around the image. You can also click and drag the circle to be centered over the face.
- Add Text to the Design
- Next, click the ‘T’ next to the shape menu at the top of the screen to open up the text menu.
- Type the phrase in the box that says ‘your text here’. Choose the font from the ‘typeface’ dropdown. Change the size to fit your design, and then, click on the ‘style’ menu to add in curved text.
- Once you type the text, you can click on it to change the size and arrange it where you want it to go. If you want to be precise, you can click on the ‘align tool’ next to the ruler to choose align middles.
- Next, play with the curved text menu and add in curved text, as well as the date and a location.
- Add a final circle around the design.
- With the circle selected, click on the patterned line menu on the right of the page (under the flip horizontal tool) and choose a pattern and change the size to fit to the edge of the words.
- Finally, add a final circle around the edge of the coin with the circle tool from the shape menu at the top of the screen.
- Prepare to cut the design
- Next, zoom back out, turn on the Glowforge and put material in your machine. Select the material and be sure that the settings are set as you’d like them to be set.(I prefer to cut the outside edge, engrave the face and then score the text. Scoring the text will save you oodles of time, which comes in handy if you’re cutting lots of coins!)
- You’re ready to cut! Press the ‘Print’ button in the upper right of the page.
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