Phone Addiction Guideing Tool(in 3D Printing, Wood and Acrylic)

Nowadays, the Phone has been mostly treated as the enemy of productivity, not because it’s an awful tool for working, but because it’s so attractive that makes people hard to focus. There is actually a proper reason why the phone is so attractive. Nowadays in order to make money on the internet, an app or an influencer must have a lot of popularity, another word will be viewed. Both app designers and influencers will maximize your time in their places. for example, the structure of a platform always leads us to an infinite recommendation, the short videos always make you scroll over and over again for more content, Therefore people will naturally spend more time without notice.

Most people pick up the phone, without even realizing that they are doing it, but we can make a product to make you think before using your phone. This instructable includes multiple ways to create simple tools that cover your phone, with text on it that can remind you to use your phone consciously, therefore avoided to fall into the trap that the apps made for you. With enough said, let's get started

For 3D printing:

3D printer,

Filaments for the Printer,

Tinkercad

For Acrylic:

A piece of Acrylic, which is not smaller than 180*80 mm,

a laser cutter capable of engraving,

a strip heater

For Wood:

2 pieces of plywood with dimensions of 20*10*10 mm,

1 larger piece of plywood with dimensions of 120*80*10 mm,

Wood Glue and clips,

Sanding machine and Sandpaper,

A laser cutter capable of engraving,

Linseed oil and a brush

Text on the top of all kinds of the product:

Think before you use the phone:

Why do you open the phone?

How long are you going to use it?

What else can you do?

The questions are intended to enable the client to use active thinking, so when they actually need to use the phone, they don't get distracted by other things.

The 3D printing part can probably be the easiest way to make the tool, I have already made a 3D model. If you have a printer, and you know how to use it, you can just right away print it. Or you can make one by your self in Tinkercad, it is very simple to use, you can always make some modification for yourself

There are a few thing that you need to be cautious of:

• When I print this, I set the filament to 0.2 mm, which is the thinnest possible for the printer available, and it works well, the text shows pretty well, but if you set a thicker filament, the text on the print might be unrecognizable, so be aware of this.
• When printing the pieces, make sure there are supports everywhere, as the pieces is relatively large.

The acrylic pieces should not be smaller than 180*80 mm, if smaller then there will not be enough space for bending the acrylic. It can always be a bit larger, as you can sand it and cut it off afterward.

Before bending the acrylic, you should first engrave the text on it, if you have a laser cutter available, there should also be software designed for the laser cutter that allows you to make simple designs on it. If not, there is an open-source software called QCAD, which can also help you to design the text on it.

For the engraving text, simply make sure it's as large as possible on the acrylic and there are spaces on the left and right for bending.

After engraving the acrylic, it's time to do the bending on the acrylic, this is one of the traits of acrylic, that it actually melt under high temperature, and bending can also make a perfect curve instead of sharp edges, which will not exist if simply glue different pieces together.

Bending acrylic needs a strip heater, and also a hot air gun if your acrylic is too thick for the strip heater to heat through completely. For me, I had a piece of 1 cm thick acrylic, so I used a Hot air gun on the top of the acrylic to help me heat it.

Before actually bending the acrylic, you should use the clamps on the striper to fix the acrylic, so that it won't move at all, make sure place the line you want to bend on, exactly on the heater. Also check the angle of the side panel, make it a bit larger than your goal, for example I set the side panel to 91 degrees, even though I want it to be just be 90 degrees, this is because when bending the pieces will not be exactly touching the strip heater completly, it will have a bit of angle between the acrylic and the strip heater, so we want to remove the angle deviation.

When everything is set, turn on the strip heater and the hot air gun, after a few minutes of heating start to slowly life up the acrylic, make sure don't it too fast, lift it a bit each time, until you reaches 91 degrees, the strip heater will be locked by the side panel.

There are also things to be cautious of when bending, First, you don't want the gear of the strip heater too high, if the gear of the strip heater is too high, it can easily create bubbles on the acrylic, which will not be so cool, this is one of the reasons why I have a hot air gun. Second, you don't want to touch the acrylic when you are heating, it should be obvious enough but I am still going to mention it when melting the acrylic it can easily get above 100°C, which can easily burn your fingers. After the bending wait until the acrylic is completely, then it's the time to take it out.

After bending, if the height it's perfect to use, congratulation! But if you left too much space when you cut the piece, and the height of the product is too high, you will need to sand to product, acrylic is a temperature-sensitive material, therefore it is relatively easy to sand it and then cut it. To sand the acrylic you need a sanding machine, this is an easy step, but safety is a big part and you have to make sure, that you don't give your finger any chance to touch the sanding machine when working, after sanding the two legs of the acrylic, you can now finally use the tools.

With all the plywood pieces on the hand, the first thing you should do is to glue them up. For this, you have to use specifically the wood glue, so that it won't easily dissassemble when you accidentally drop it.

To glue the pieces correctly, you'll first put glue on the piece, put the two pieces together, find two clamps that can give enough pressure, and wait for about 15 mins.

Even though it takes about 24 hours for the glue to completely dry, after 15 mins the glue will be strong enough for you to move on to the next step.

If you want a nice curve on your piece, you can use the sanding machine. draw the curve on the side, every time you use the sanding machine, never give any chance finger to touch the sanding machine when working, if you find it hard to control the piece, you can add some tape to assist you, just like shown in the picture.

After sanding the pieces, if you show some burns on the piece, you can use some sandpaper to sand the burned part. This is also the time for you to sand the other edges of the piece slightly, it can not only be dangerous to leave the edges unsanded, but it also makes the top layer of the plywood easier to fall off from the piece.

After the sanding process, it is time for engraving,

If you have a laser cutter available, there should also be software designed for the laser cutter that allows you to make simple designs on it. If not, there is an open-source software called QCAD, which can also help you to design the text on it.

When designing the text, just make sure that the text won't be engraved on top of the curves and that it is right at the center of the piece.

After engraving the text, there's the final step - oiling, for this we need to use linseed oil and a brush, perhaps also some tissues. Every time I make a wooden object, I would cover it with linseed oil to make it looks darker. For this one I did it as well, I cover every face and corner with much linseed oil first. I waited 15 mins after the first step so the linseed oil can sink into the wood. After 15 mins I wipe the extra oil off and wait for 24 hours to make it completely dry. 

Now your wood piece is also ready to be use!