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Living Hinge: A Magical Laser Cutter Project for All Grade Levels

What if it were possible to make wood flexible?

Actually, it is. When a laser cutter cuts a piece of wood in certain patterns, the wood itself becomes a living, or flexible, hinge. A living hinge makes it possible to fold wood into a box or a book cover or even a mobius strip.

When you know how to create living hinges on a laser cutter, you open up your students and fellow teachers to a whole new world of possible design challenges and project ideas that can be worked into curricular goals across subjects. The Dremel DigiLab laser cutter makes this project accessible, safe, and quick to implement.

5 Essentials to Include in Your Makerspace Grant

With problem solving at the top of the list of skills we need to teach our students, many school budgets include funding for makerspace or fabrication lab tools. But what if you need to write a grant or fundraise to purchase the new laser cutter that you know will revolutionize your students’ making experience?

We’ve compiled the top five essential points to include in your laser cutter grant to help you communicate the benefits of purchasing a laser cutter for your school.

3 Ways That Your School’s Laser Cutter Can Pay for Itself

You know that a safe, high-quality laser cutter will greatly enhance your school’s STEAM efforts and makerspace, but how can you maximize your investment?

In fact, “desktop” laser cutters like the Dremel DigiLab are so versatile they can help your school actually make money on new initiatives and reduce costs for things you already do. Here’s how.

How to Meet Language Arts and Social Studies Standards with Your Laser Cutter

Teachers of all grade levels and subjects have discovered that DigiLab laser cutters can take learning up a big notch, hitting a wide variety of standards and deeply engaging students in the work. We’ve created lists of ideas to spark your thinking about how to add a laser cutter to your language arts or social studies lessons, with links to Common Core State Standards.

To come up with your own curriculum applications, consider the units in which your students are least engaged or those that you find most boring to teach. Then, take the story above and the following ideas as inspiration. How might a laser cutter help you to add a new dimension to your own lessons?

Using a Laser Cutter if You Don't Teach STEAM

You’ve probably heard about the power of digital fabrication tools to create opportunities for deeper student learning and high-level student problem solving. There are incredible stories of feats achieved by students in robotics and engineering and other STEM classes using laser cutters and 3D printers. But what does a laser cutter have to do with kindergarten language arts class?

How a Laser Cutter Teaches Design Thinking

Imagine your students working through a guided process to solve pressing, real-world problems. They are deeply engaged in this meaningful work, and they are about to become even more engaged as the ideas from their imaginations become actual, tangible products as they are quickly prototyped on the school’s new laser cutter. You’re happy, too, because the project they are working on meets Next Generation Science Standards and Common Core State Standards for solving authentic problems.*

Project: Dice Sliding Puzzle with the LC40 and 3D45

One of our favorite TV shows growing up was Survivor. It was a show of wits, physical strength, and social prowess. Above all else, our favorite part of the show was the challenges. We would try and recreate them for ourselves and compete to see who could finish the puzzles the fastest. One of our favorite puzzles to race against were the slide puzzles.

This was something we knew we wanted to create with the 3D45 printer and LC40 cutter. Our current design can be as small or as large as you like, and feature any design you’d want to create! We decided to make the face of the design resemble dice pieces, rather than standard numbers.

mothers day acrylic laser cut picture frame

How To: Create A Laser Cut Floating Picture Frame

Do you need a quick gift for Mother's Day this weekend? Here, we show you how you can make a "floating" acrylic picture frame for your loved ones. You can use a Digilab LC40 laser cutter to cut, engrave, and personalize the perfect frame to capture any special moment.

High School Students Lend a Hand to a Worthy Cause with 3D Printing

Hardin-Jefferson high school students use 3D printing technology to build and donate prosthetic limbs.

When her principal asked veteran mathematics teacher Joy Schwartz to teach a printing and imaging technology course for high school students, there might have been an ulterior – and heartwarming – motive.

Should I Get a Laser Cutter or a 3D Printer?

Many maker spaces and classrooms are equipped with both 3D printers and laser cutters, and creative people may have one or both devices in their homes and workshops. Together, these two tools can be used to teach new skills and inspire creativity. Projects created with either a 3D printer or a laser cutter may be artistic, functional, or both.

These machines are cutting-edge technology that can inspire us to think outside the box. They can be used together, but you might wonder whether you should get a laser cutter or a 3D printer, instead. To answer that, you need to understand how each device works.

Digilab Blog