# Laser Cut Kinetic Sculptures 🦿, Stencil fonts in Cuttle 🏝️

JAN 3, 2023

Here's the latest with [Cuttle](https://cuttle.xyz/).

-   New [template](https://cuttle.xyz/@cuttle/Walking-Man-Automaton-7ztueWP9CkLU) and [tutorial video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsDhRiuSCEU): make a laser cut “Walking Man” kinetic toy
-   See more mechanical automata by Federico in the latest [live stream recording](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do7BmjoMKcI)
-   New **Stencil** category in the font picker
-   Improvements to the [Name Snowflake](https://cuttle.xyz/@cuttle/Name-Snowflake-Ornament-5HKNEddwMGMR) template

## “Walking Man” Mechanical Automaton 🦿

![](https://content.cuttle.xyz/blog/laser-cut-kinetic-sculptures-stencil-fonts-in-cuttle-2/7e57687136885f6f1d2da3cf2b53ccd17c1e5e50ed41f9f848539c4188b41288.gif)

Federico created [this kinetic sculpture](https://cuttle.xyz/@cuttle/Walking-Man-Automaton-7ztueWP9CkLU) that you can cut on your laser cutter. His [tutorial video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsDhRiuSCEU) walks you through cutting and assembly.

Several years ago, Federico shared a free cut file to make a similar kinetic toy, but he was frustrated that the design was tuned for a very specific material thickness. If your material was a different size, the pieces wouldn’t quite fit together or spin properly.

This [new template](https://cuttle.xyz/@cuttle/Walking-Man-Automaton-7ztueWP9CkLU) lets you specify the thickness of your material to generate a cut file with a perfect fit.

Federico also worked in a few more improvements in this latest iteration of the “Walking Man”. He took us behind the scenes on the [latest live stream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do7BmjoMKcI).

## Stencil Fonts 🏝️

The font picker now has a “Stencil” category.

![](https://content.cuttle.xyz/blog/laser-cut-kinetic-sculptures-stencil-fonts-in-cuttle-2/dccaeac996fae0d0b2c292797001d92e779fdcf7ad6d7f2cbbfb6b9a7b9b28da.gif)

When you cut out text in normal fonts, you lose the "islands" in letters like abde...

Stencil fonts have "bridges" to the islands so you don't lose them when cutting.

![](https://cuttle-content.imgix.net/blog/laser-cut-kinetic-sculptures-stencil-fonts-in-cuttle-2/a61f581c6931eb8cfcb6ba66e5d1d960ed3ff2004e5214cb804c1296e7842a44.png?auto=compress,format&q=60&fit=max&w=720&h=720&dpr=2)

Shoutout to Cuttle user [**@cleversomeday**](https://cuttle.xyz/@cleversomeday) for suggesting this feature and compiling the stencil fonts from Google Fonts (the free fonts that come with Cuttle). Also check out [her blog](https://cleversomeday.com/) for lots of great info on Cricut, Silhouette, and plotting!

## Name Snowflake Improvements ❄️

I added a `rotation` parameter to the [Name Snowflake](https://cuttle.xyz/@cuttle/Name-Snowflake-Ornament-5HKNEddwMGMR) template.

![](https://content.cuttle.xyz/blog/laser-cut-kinetic-sculptures-stencil-fonts-in-cuttle-2/94eb345b3446afa25cf6a228a7eaabcc45257a3be0079610cab994a93a5527e2.gif)

This gives you even more options to change the look of your snowflake. It can also be useful when your name has “descenders” — letters that go below the baseline like `jpqy`. See the example above.

I also made some other improvements to this design which make it perform faster (that is, respond more quickly to your changes).

## Live Streams 🗼

![](https://cuttle-content.imgix.net/blog/laser-cut-kinetic-sculptures-stencil-fonts-in-cuttle-2/2d1556375a16d23323097305b3d5cbfadb4fd2ca0a912fe5039b3a9124cc7f3c.jpg?auto=compress,format&q=60&fit=max&w=720&h=720&dpr=2)

We’re taking some time off from live streams to focus on the next set of Cuttle features, but you can [watch previous episodes here](https://www.youtube.com/@Cuttle/streams).

Last week we hosted Federico who showed us his [menagerie of mechanical automata](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do7BmjoMKcI) and described the story, process, and mechanisms behind this body of work.

The week before, Ryan and I shared some of our [back stories and how that led to Cuttle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogt3t77ah-4).

We’ll let you know the next time we’ll be live streaming. Stay tuned!

## Other Improvements and Fixes 🐞

-   In the font picker, we renamed “Stroke” fonts to use the more common term “Single Line” fonts.
-   Fixed a bug where uniform scale was ignored when resizing a shape with a unit-ed scale, like `5 mm`.

![Small circular photo of Toby](https://cuttle.xyz/images/blog-authors/Toby.jpg)

Toby Schachman