Week 4 | Cutting Supersurfaces

This week we are introduced to the lasercutter. The aim is to create a 3D object series (with a minimal of 5 gradations) based on two extremes. For me, these were wide and narrow.

Lasercut experiments

The first lesson of this week we received an extensive tutorial and explanation about origami. We also had a workshop on this in the first week. With this inspiration I entered the week.

Everyone also drew a paper on that day that had two extremes. You could use this but it was completely optional. I chose to use these extremes for my designs. With the words wide and narrow I immediately went into a few inspiration books that I found in class.

Sample one

Nothing really came out of these books yet. I then walked to a laser cutter and made a quick design on the illustrator in the Makers Lab. This design consisted of several folding lines on an A4 paper. By kiss cutting this or making dots in it, the lines would be easier to fold. The end result should become a 3D pattern if it is folded correctly.

I chose to make dots for the folding lines.

Unfortunatly, it didn't worked out as it supposed to. Despite, I have learned that you are not supposed to fold everything in two directions. But that some lines have to be folded inwards and some outwards.

Sample two

As I tried the dots out, I now wanted to test the kiss cutting effect with the lasercutter. Kim brought some material to the Makers Lab and I was able to test a print on one of them. The material was in shape of a bunny.

I kiss cutted eyes in the bunny material. The left, yellow one, the power was lower than the right one as you can see in brightness of the design printed on it.

Sample three

The Makers Lab had a very nice pattern as an example. I also wanted to try this and make it myself. In no time I noticed that it was quite a job if you were going to make this yourself in illustrator. I asked Desiree if she would like to send me the template she obtained from the Makers Lab. I printed it out with the laser cutter and about 180 grams A4 paper. The first try didn't came out good because I used too less power (15.0 to be exact).

The holes in the paper where not deep enough. The second try worked out perfect. Here I used a power of 30.0 as you can see in the picture above.

So now, I tested the basics of the machine. The next step was to find a shape where I want to use those two extreme words and make a set out of it.

My definition of wide and narrow

I first want to set out my definition of wide and narrow because everyone can see it another way.

Wide are no sharp corners or curves. Wide is not close to each other. Wide has distance. Wide is long. Wide is stretched out.

Narrow has no space. Narrow is close together. Narrow has sharp corners or curves. Narrow is tight.

Note: I made a moodboard out of this. I used magazines and put it all together. Unfortunatly it's still in the Makers Lab and I didn't take a picture of it. At the bottom of the tab "The Assignment" you can see a GIF with the moodboard but not very clear because it's a GIF.

The assignment: STARS

The idea

The idea to make different stars from wide to narrow came from a sample. I made the star below to practice with the laser cutter. In the end I decided to take this star as a starting point and work further on it. I have made stars that have a more narrow appearance and stars that appear wider.

Star 1

Flat wooden plates fastened with small wooden circles into a star without sharp points.

The degrees of the points of the star are so large that it actually no longer resembles a star. I measured the thickness of the wood and used this size for the inlets of the surfaces. I made the circles twice as long as the length of the inlets. In this way I could easily press the circles into the planes and connect everything together.

Star 2

Wide origami star with different patterns and dotted folding line.

The words wide and narrow are all about the shape of the stars but are not based on the patterns in the stars. The patterns have been mainly small exercises for me to see what is possible on the laser printer and what's not.

With this star you can see that I tried to use the previous sample 3D pattern again, only smaller here. I could push this out a little bit but it was disappointing. This was because the stripes became so thin that the laser printer could not take them all. So I had to cut out part of the template in Illustator which meant that there was not really depth.

Star 3

Middle star of the set consisting of flat plates fastened together with little circles.

This star is based on the first, widest star that was successful. I now wanted to do the same with triangles added to make it more narrow. However, I ran out of wood, so I used a material that looked like wood, but also felt cardboardish.

The laser printer did not take this well. The edges turned black and gave off, and the laser printer didn't really want to go through.

In week 9 I wanted to make it again with real wood, but that did not happen because I could no longer enter maker's lab because of the corona virus.

I have now made the design flexible and convertible from 2D to 3D. You can turn the edges up and down. This is the middle gradation of the two extremes.

Star 4

Second middle star in the set made out of origami with laser cut patterns and striped folding line.

As I said, this was the first star I made from the set. A standard star that I double printed and glued together with folding lines to create a 3D effect.

Star 5

Most narrow star of the set made out of origami with a kiss cutted pattern inside and folding lines.

These pages and stars are all bounded in a selfmade lookbook which is located in the Makerslab. I wanted to put all the pages in the book, but due to Corona virus I can't do that now. Below the layout of the book. I chose purple and black because this reflects the color of the sky in the night when the stars come out. I used an accordeon binding technique I found on the internet and I used several tutorial to make it my own.

As you can see I laser cutted the cover of the book. I used the following settings:

The letters came out and that was the moment I thought I can re-use these letters to paste them on the outcutted letters to create a sort of 3D effect (see the gifs).

The material is a sort of black cardboard. Dusanka brought it with her and had some of them left which I could use. I liked the material immedietly. I thought that the color would totally fit the feeling of the stars and the hardness/softness of the material is perfect for the cover of a book. The purple pages inside is a thinner cardboard which I took from the Makers Lab inventory.

The first two pages consists the moodboard. I found purple tape which perfectly fitted the books layout. Unfortunetly I don't have a picture of this moodboard because I wasn't prepared at not seeing the book anymore because of the Corona virus.

Below you can see how the accordeon technic is applied.

Reflection

I enjoyed working with the lasercutter. After this project I also wanted to make things for myself such as key rings or other things to experiment because I thought it was such a nice machine. Unfortunately, that didn't happen anymore because of corona time. In addition to the laser cutter, I also learned how the cutting machine works to cut books or zines. Bookbinding in an accordion way has now also been taught to me.