Home Final Project Project Tracker
week0: CAD & Project Concept week1: Parametric Design & Laser Cutting week2: 3D Scanning & Printing week3: Large Format CNC week4: Molding & Casting week5: Clank & Electronics week6: Electronics Design week7: Embedded Programming week8: Input Devices week9: Project progress week10: Output Devices week11: Networking & Communication week12: Interface & Application Programming
week1

Week 1: Getting to know the flow

Parametric Design | Computer-Controlled Cutting | Version Control | HTML

I'm feeling good with the design work, but learning git, gitlab, html and generally how to think and communicate like a programmer has been no small task. Still, I am learning to enjoy the process, to enjoy being a beginner again.


Assignment 1: Parametric Construction Kit

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Concept Sketches for kit components. The mobius strip and the triangle with forked nodes made it to the final cut.

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CAD shots. I couldn't choose on a direction, so I decided to model them both.

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Setup, cutting, burning the cardboard, testing joints, finding them wanting. Back to the CAD...

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Tweaked the CAD and refined the joints. Resulted in a successful living hinges, cut at an angle to create a continuous mobius strip

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The triangles connect to each other in a number of ways, but my initial plan was to create separate, smaller nodes as complementary components. In cutting, I discovered that the interior offcuts could fulfill this function perfectly while simultaneously minimizing waste.

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Build out abstract structures to play around with how the components interact with each other.
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While I initially thought the components could only really build abstract structures, there are enough potential joint interactions on each component to allow for a more deliberate kind of structure. These examples show something resembling a lunar module and maybe some sort of creature? Who knows!

Assignment 2: Vinyl Cutting

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Jen showing us how to setup the Roland vinyl cutter through the mods program and how to test the machine setup for cutting strength

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Setting up my png file in Mods. It's a design artifact from a project last year, a wheelchair travel app called Free Wheelin'

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Masking, placing & weeding the negative space as offcuts.