I like the game Go.  Wikipedia says it was invented about 2,500 years ago in ancient China.  You can read more about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_%28game%29

I was eating M&Ms yesterday and realized they would make great Go pieces.  The added benefit is that if you capture your enemy…  yum…  We got some big bags of the colorful candy and sorted them.  Note this is being done on our dining room “chess” table.

The plans were drawn up using DraftSight CAD (from the makers of SolidWorks).  It looked like this:

I imported that into VCarve Pro and generated toolpaths.  Here is what some of the gcode looks like:

I started by screwing down a leftover piece of pre-finished oak plywood and double-checking some tool measurements.  Here is a picture of the grid being cut with a 90 degree v bit.

Subsequent operations included using a 0.50″ ball nosed bit for the edges of the pockets, a 1/2″ straight bit for the center of the pockets, a v bit for the outside chamfer, and a 0.25″ carbide upcut bit for cutting the board out.

Since I lack a vacuum table, I used both onion skinning (a very thin final layer) and tabs (leftover connections you remove with a chisel) to keep the board from moving during cut out.

Here is a closeup of the grid.  I need to understand a bit more about feeds and speeds with v-bits because of the very small diameter at the tip of the bit.

Here is a close up of the orange side during game play.

And finally a view of all-out-go-combat from above.  I think orange is winning, don’t you?