Carey’s Fort

Carey, along with his wife Fiona, are two of our very lovely Makerspace regulars. Their ideas are endless and they are always thinking up new designs to create.

One of our favourite projects of theirs was Carey’s Fort which was a tribute to his late Father. The idea came from the plan of a fort that Carey found when clearing out his Dad’s old items. He realised that the plan of the fort had never been made into a reality so as tribute to his Father, Carey decided to complete the fort for his Grandchildren.

However, he soon realised that creating this by hand was going to be a very long and tedious process so he made a very sensible decision and came to the Makerspace.

We had a chat and I introduced Carey and Fiona to the Glowforge which is a laser cutter that is capable of cutting up to 1.2cm of material. Fiona was well up for the challenge of learning CAD which we were so impressed by as she had no prior experience but was very willing to put in the time and learn.

We used TinkerCAD to design every piece of the fort. TinkerCAD is actually a 3D design software for kids but it’s a great foundation for learning how to create basic shapes to be laser cut whilst also gaining the skills to create designs that can be 3D Printed.

We worked together to create the first few pieces so that Fiona understood the design process. After creating a few pieces Fiona felt confident to be able to go home and begin creating pieces independently.

As you can see above she absolutely smashed it. After a few more appointments and some tips from our Makerspace Technician she was more than capable of independent design and all the pieces of the fort were created.

This left Carey with the final task of piecing all of the Fort parts together. As you can see below it has been a success and is now just waiting for a bit of texture and some paint. We can’t wait to see it in its final form!

We have a laser cutter in both Penarth and Barry Makerspace. If you would like to try out a project of your own please do not hesitate to contact us via our Contact page.