For this week, I use cardboard to enhance the collector experience with wild flora. I knew little about how botanists make specimen, and to my delight, cardboard is widely used in the practice already, for its great accessibility and material structure - cardboard is great for carrying/drying flowers for its porous structure distributes wind evenly and its paper-like nature absorbs humidity.
A selection of precut cardboards is all botanists need for transporting plants from wilderness to a mounted frame! I decide to add a twist to the process by laser cut components into cardboard, which can be easily grouped into floral carrier and allows one to collect a flower without pressing it flat in situ. So if you ever run into a very rare plant, or just want to bring a flower home in its full blossoming state - you can NOW do it! in addition to the traditional way of flattening everything down between cardboards.
With the design, I scale the pieces so they can fit into one a4 surface, which can sneak into a traditional cardboard pack nicely. Hikers can choose to piece them together on spot, or to use them as a normal cardboard. I do not want the components to be too tiny, otherwise they will just fall out from the pack in a bumpy trip. I want to map the porous feature of the cardboard from its flat-mode to its 3d mode. I also want it to be roomy to welcome plants of all size.
The design i came up is as follows.
//Please imagine all the rest of 11 bone radiate from the center. *fusion, how to replicate while rotate* *fusion, how to accept new surface as working surface*
Parametric design comes in handy as I adjust the thickness of the slot to pair with the exact width of the cardboard for print. As I arrange the pieces to a surface, I find room for an extra lock piece. The idea is to have the top and bottom of bones to interlock with one interior and one exterior.
//First hour of cutting went not wrong, but futile. The laser was, as I later find out, merely scathing the surface. It is set for printing rather than cutting. Oops.
I adjusted the settings of laser and it cuts in no time. //Fire hazard is REAL. The pieces interlock alright, and cardboard structure demonstrates stronger stability than I expected - I tossed the assorted flower in my backpack and it survived a speed bike commute.
W2 update - Flower dry naturally. It is interesting to observe how petals, stems, leaves, pollens all shrink to various degrees given the percentage of water they contain. The overall form deforms. Out of the three plants, yellow is personal fav for its structural complexity. I wonder if they will hydrate if put into water. Fall befalls Boston.
*Next Make, I want the pieces to hang to the surface with tiny linkage. So the collector can be put together whenever needed.* *Next Make, it is only 15 pieces/1 surface/1 collector. It can be nice to go into a botanist cardboard backpack, with variations*