Candy was the first major project for IPD 501, an advanced design and manufacturing course. Given aluminum stock, a very basic introduction to CNC milling and SolidCam, and an incredibly limiting two-hour machining time restriction, we were let loose to design and manufacture our best attempts at “desk candy”.

My design consisted of a surface-modeled, organically-shaped koi, meant to take advantage of the capabilities of the CNC mill. After the design of the koi was complete, a large amount of time was devoted to creating the toolpaths and SolidCAMfile. As we were only allowed two hours of milling time, significant efforts were made to cut back on each operation’s duration.