Valet Tray

This was my final project for my Mastercam class at Austin Community College. The guidelines were to make a mostly 2D part and mill it out of a school provided 3x5x1" block of 6061 using only  3/8", 1/4" endmills and a 90° chamfer tool.  I thought it would be cool to build a organization tray that I can put on my bedside or coffee table to store my everyday pocket items. After some further research, turns out these trays are called a "valet tray". 

I knew the 3x5" provided stock for the project wasn't going to be big enough. After some talk with my instructor I hit the internet for a bigger sheet of 6061, and found a deal on eBay for a 11.5x6.5x1.0" sheet of aluminum.

For the design I knew I wanted to make a designated space for my phone, wallet, car keys, and headphones. So I got out the calipers and started measuring everything up. 

From left to right: phone slot, wallet slot, headphone/miscellaneous item slots, and a small pocket for a pen. I added in some breaks in the walls for ease of grabbing the items, and because it  looks cool. The 45° wall on the right side has no function other than looks and I think it slightly resembles isogrid, which is cool.

Next came programming, using all my new skills I had learned over the duration of the fall semester.  The original project boundaries only  allowed for 3/8", 1/4" endmills and a 90° chamfer tool. I needed more than that mainly for features like the internal fillets, so after another talk with my instructor I got the thumbs up for additional tooling. 

With the program looking good it was time to cut. This would be my first experience cutting a real part on a large CNC machine tool like this. I would be learning in the most effective way possible: standing alone in front of an intimidating machine, figuring it out by making all the inevitable mistakes. By the end of this project I had learned a lot about the HAAS control and how to go from a file on a flash drive to a complete part. Huge thanks to my instructor for giving me so much runway here.

The best way to learn is to go straight into the fire with all the freedom to make a real mistake. Fortunately, I didn't break anything and the part came out looking better than I had expected. Above are pictures of the first operation. I had to do a second operation to knock the ~0.25" of material that was used for fixturing in the first OP.

Very pleased with the results. It makes for a nice shiny piece laying around my apartment.