Silhouette: What Is It? A Cutting Machine

The Silhouette Machine is a cutting tool that connects to your printer. When you send your designs to the little machine, it cuts them out instead of printing. With it your students can create designs for subject areas such as art, history, geography, algebra, physics, and chemistry.  The product comes with 50 pre-loaded designs, many of which are seasonal such as snowflakes and holiday images.  Other images are available for download  ($.99) each. It works with scrapbooking, card making, glass etching, heat transfers, card stock, and vinyl. Its paper crafting abilities make it a plus for helping students think in 3D, for with it they can engineer their own geometric shapes. There’s a Silhouette blog with FAQs and information from contributing artists.  Think of how this machine might enhance the equipment in your classroom or computer lab. The machine costs about $300 and is Windows compatible.