Year 8 at our Senior School were given a design brief to design and manufacture an 80x80mm square panel using pewter and acrylic.

Firstly, they researched the Art Deco design movement that began in France in the 1920s. Using this as a point of reference, the students produced multiple designs before moving on to one that they refined and developed.

They then modelled the projects in card to understand the way that the materials would go together before moving on to producing a CAD drawing of their design. This was used to produce an individual, high density foam, CAM mould on the laser cutter into which was poured molten pewter. The specification stated that the materials had to be separated by a minimum of 2.5mm to allow the pewter to fully flow around the mould. Sometimes “exhaust channels” were filed to allow the contained air a route to escape - similar to fumaroles or secondary vents in a volcano.

Finally, the translucent acrylic was cut on the laser cutter with students push fitting into the hand finished pewter frame. All 63 were then mounted as a central display which also reflected and respected the Datchelor glass in the school’s main atrium.