MDF feed lasercutter
At KU Leuven, we have a lab called “fablab” where you can use 3D printers and lasercutters, amongst others. The problem is that they have about 6 lasercutters, and they’re almost always occupied. When you arrive with your designs ready to be lasercut, you have to wait until there is one free. So, if we would be able to automate the whole thing, we’d just have to upload our design, pay for the used material and come get it at a very predictable time in the future.
The only thing a person has to do if they have a dozen designs, is load their design, put in an MDF plate, wait until the lasercutter has done cutting, get everything out and repeat. This seems feasible to automate, by having a feed of MDF plates that can slide into the lasercutter, and when the lasercutter is done, the bed could tilt the freshly cut pieces into some container, possibly with sheets of paper or cardboard between them to separate different people’s lasercut pieces.