I recently went to a local place where various kinds of nerds like to meet. They had all the cool toys, apparently it's a whole thing to get people more interested in tech and fucking around with it.

The one thing that really blew me away with how convenient it was: they had a laser engraver. And now you might think, well yeah, you can engrave stuff, what about it? You're not thinking far enough. They put thin scrap wood in it and made it cut out shapes! And they made small wooden boxes with it to build tech inside!

I was talked into going there because I had plans to make a simple switch that would toggle the audio output between my speakers and my headset, so I wouldn't always have to get up and unplug my speakers and plug my headset in, just to join voice chat. I was all "well the wiring sounds super simple but I'd need two input plugs, a good multi wire switch, an output wire, a soldering iron..." and the guy I met online (who happened to be from my home town!) went "come on over and we'll just build it together! :D"

And while we were gathering supplies to build it, someone chimed in and asked if she should design us a box for it! Confused, I said yes, and we took some measurements of the switch we'd picked and some creative guesswork how much space the internals would need. Imagine my surprise when she sent blueprints to a laser engraver in the back room and I got six perfectly cut/burnt puzzle shaped plates back! Add a bit of wood glue and now it sits proudly on my desk.

Just engrave hard and slow enough and it'll burn right through wood, and do precise cuts. I've been told if you get the wood thickness and the measurements juuuuust right, you could even build it without glue! But this really isn't an "open later" kind of project. This box stays safe and shut, sitting next to my monitor, ready to be flipped whenever. And all it took was a bunch of free tools and less than 3€ to buy the fancy AUX ports with the screw on rings to cling to the wooden holes.