We create a lot of paper circuits projects that range from simple to rather complicated. In a classroom setting the complicated ones often prove difficult for some students due to the dexterity that the cutting requires. One such project is our Robot Buddies templates with all of their cuts and folds. However if you want to make life much easier on yourself you can always such a paper cutting machine such as a Cameo Silhouette to do the cutting for you.

We found ourselves in this situation recently with a teacher who wanted to do 140 Robot Buddies with 4th and 5th graders. While we were trying to figure out some alternatives for her she mentioned that she had a Cameo Silhouette. We recently bought one ourselves for the purpose of faster paper craft and demo creation. With that in mind we spent some time getting everything set up and documented.

The process works quite well for quickly cutting and scoring, with the entire cut taking under 30 seconds. No more awkward scissor cutting and straight edge folding. The only downside is that you lose the printed tape guidelines.

We documented the process and provided some pre made files for download. One is a mostly set up file for the Cameo software, all a teacher has to do is set up the black lines for cutting and the blue lines for scoring.

We also have a universal DXF file that can reimported into pretty much any software. You'll just have to set up the dotted lines as score lines (and probably make them solid at some point) and the outside solid lines as cut lines. If you have access to a laser cutter you could easily cut this design out and even use the dotted lines to create a laser cut score.