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A step towards fighting the virus.
The COVID-19 virus spreads through the air, and therefore we maintain appropriate distance between each other, and some people wear masks. However, there is also another way the virus can spread. What makes the COVID-19 virus especially dangerous, is that the virus can survive on surfaces for up to 72 hours (source). We can infect ourselves and others if we touch our faces or mouths with our contaminated hands.
We have two options to fight this method of contamination. We can either disinfect the surfaces that we touch after every use, or avoid to touch them all-together. Disinfection can be hard to achieve for frequently used objects. Therefore refraining from touching these objects is the safest way to prevent contamination.
While public places like schools and stores are slowly opening their doors again in Europe, we have to be cautious about how we can limit ways for the virus to spread. We have to suppress our natural tendency to touch the objects that we usually touch. Many everyday objects require our hands to operate them. Doorhandles, water taps, soap dispensers, buttons and handrails are all things that are not only touched often, but by many people. Instead of franticly trying to clean these objects continuously, we could try to come up with solutions to refrain from touching these objects with our hands completely.
We could start with doorhandles. Try and imagine the amount of people that touch a door handle in a public building. Doors have existed since the beginning of human history, and we are used to operating them with our hands. We could come up with either a partially electronic or fully mechanical system system that is universal, and fits on every door. It might be hard to use something as self-evident as a door in a different way than we are used to, but we need to stop contamination on frequently used surfaces. Automatically opening doors are already a thing, but they have to be installed by a professional and are very expensive. We want a simple modification that can be applied to every existing door.
We need to stop touching door handles. It may not seem like much, but every object that we don't touch is one less way to spread the virus. The ultimate goal is to come up with a product that gives us the ability to open a door without touching it. The solution has to be affordable, universal and accessible.
The hardest aspect of the solution will be accessibility. We have to keep in mind that we cannot produce and provide products the way that we are used to in current circumstances. There are also countless doors in public buildings, so the product would have to be reproduced often. There are three possible methods to bring our (yet to be designed) solution to the people.
This method is based on the "teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" philosophy. There are many things we don't have due to the lockdown, but one thing we now do have is time. If we create clear and simple instructions people can make their own door modifications for at home or at work. If we end up using electronics, we can provide people with the circuits and programming to make our product. For the mechanical parts, we can use tools that many people have at home, like printers, and create templates for our product so they can be made manually. Since stores are open in the Netherlands, the consumers have the same access to materials as I do. The lack of a fabrication lab would pose no problem if we choose this method. The online design is not fixed, can be modified or improved at any time, by anyone.
Materials are still abundantly available in the Netherlands, since the home improvement stores are open, but not every country has this luxury, and not everyone is able to go outside. If we design this product in a way that we can reproduce at it high speed, we can send people these ready-to-use products via mail. This will require no skill or time from the user. This way the level accessibility of the product depends on the availability of postal services, or independent delivery services.
What might cause a problem here, is that as a developer and manufacturer I have limited resources to create the tools for mass reproduction. I have no fab lab and it might be difficult to create my own tools. I do have access to the home improvement store and there are many things that I can do at home. In the case I do manage to create a tool to make these products fast and easily, I could share the knowledge to create this tool online, which gives other people the ability to create more products.
To combine the two previous methods, we could consider taking the IKEA approach. Partially assembling the products at home saves the manufacturer time, and possibly makes the packaging more compact. This means we can produce and distribute many kits. Remember that we would want this device on every door, so we need quite a lot of them. Creating building sets can keep the costs to a minimal, and on account of the lockdown we can assume that people have some time left over to assemble the products. This also gives more opportunities for consumers to hack our kit, rather than having a ready-made product.
This method however most likely needs classic fabrication machines that I personally might not have access to. I however am able to create a prototype to test the concept, and create files so people with access can produce these kits.
Summer Danoe 2020 (personal documentation)
Please take a look at the projects that inspired me!
Assignment
Another week of working from home, and we're making bioplastics. We received a bunch of ingredients to make these in our own kitchen.
Make your own bioplastics Try various recipes, add other materials, play with textures and use your mold. Document your process and findings.
Future applications develop a concept for future applications.
Material properties sheet Describe the properties of your material.
Experimental toolkit understand the experience of your material
A little archive of dyes I made
Modern designers are spoiled. The digital software we use have every color that a human eye can see available for infinite use. With synthetic ink we can create most of these colors on paper. We often forget where these colors come from. I will try to extract natural dyes to use in bioplastics, so final products will be all natural.
All the products I used to extract these dyes were found in my home. My plan was to extract all the colors by cooking the materials I found. To test the dye I briefly put in a cotton pad while the dye was boiling. I don't think this was a very good way to test the dyes, but it's supposed to give some indication as to how the color will turn out.
I received a beautiful bouquet of purple tulips and I'm in love with the color. After seeing classmates use hibiscus tea to extract a purple dye I wanted to try it with different flowers. After finding a mention in an article of using tulip pigments specifically to color bioplastics, I figured I'd give it a try.
The article doesn't show how they extract the color. They did state they used dried tulips. I didn't have time to dry them so I just used the boiling method.
I had 50 tulips, so I could afford to lose a few. I used the petals of 5 flowers. It hurt my patriotic heart a bit to destroy our national symbol of pride.
Shortly after boiling the petals lost their purple color. I expected the water to become brown, but after cooking it through for about 10 minutes this lovely bright green color appeared.
They look nothing like the original product, which is a bit of a disappointment but a beautiful green color nevertheless.
I still insisted on making a purple dye and after a quick search I found this article. They claimed that: "The same basil, Ocimum basilicum, that flavors your salads can also produce a nice purplish-grey dye bath. Different types of basil can produce different shades. Gather the leaves and stems and boil with water to extract the color." I was limited to the products I had in my house, so if "purplish-grey" all I can get I will have to work with it.
I'm quite skeptical, since no other articles I read mentioned using basil, and there is no picture of the end result. We will find out as soon
My basil plant apparently didn't like direct sunlight, so it was nearing its end anyway. I cut of all the stems and leaves and threw them in a pot. After boiling for half an hour and straining the basil out, I was left with a brown/grey dye.
I still felt a bit disappointed. Betrayed even. Although it's a beautiful color, it's still nowhere near purple. I think my trust in vague internet articles is damaged.
A dye with a bit of a backup story. After the two muted colors I made, I was ready for something bright and happy. Loes said that basically anything that will leave stains on a shirt, can create a good dye. I immediately thought one ingredient my mother always told me to never spill, the king of all stains: massala. As a person from a Surinamese and Indonesian family, I'm quite familiar with this ingredient.
This yellow spice leaves stains that are almost impossible to remove if you don't treat them immediately. Recently I did have a little accident, when an egg from my roti rolled of my plate onto my white cotton shirt.
I ran to the sink and used a stain removal wipe I had lying around. The color shifted almost instantly to a bright red red, which I had never seen before. I looked through the ingredients of the stain removal wipe to see if there was any substance that triggered this change in color, but i didn't know any of the ingredients. Eventually I successfully removed both the yellow and red stains with bleach.
Now that I know that under certain (unknown) circumstances, the otherwise yellow massala can show up bright red. I thought it would be interesting to make a dye out of it, which may have an unexpected outcome.
I cooked two teaspoons of massala in half a liter of water for 10 minutes. Then I strained through a sift and a coffee filter. It took quite a while to strain the massala powder out the mixture. I As expected the dye stained the white cotton, as this happened to my cotton shirt as well. I was secretly hoping for the red shade to suddenly show up, but I knew this was very unlikely.
I'm very happy with how saturated the color is. I wish I knew which ingredients turned the yellow to red, but I'm satisfied with the final result.
My coffee machine discards coffee grounds in nice round pills. We usually save them for gardening, so I had a lot to play with. I chose to go for the used coffee grounds instead of just coffee because I like the idea of using waste-products.
Since it took some time to separate the powder from the dye the previous time, I thought I could try containing the grounds in a filter. This however kept all the grounds tightly pressed together in the filter, and didn't give them the room to float around and released color.
I threw the grounds of 3 cups of coffee in a liter of water and boiled for half an hour. Then strained through a coffee filter.
I didn't expect for the already used coffee to release this much color. I like the smell, and i wonder if different types of coffee will give different colors.
There are different types of bioplastics:
Biodegradeable Overtime the product will disappear due to a natural process (initiated by humans)
Biobased based on biological raw products that come from a renewable source, never a fossil material.
Bioplastics are already widely used in short cycle products. This is however strongly outweighed by traditional plastics we know. EU measures, legislation are already enforcing the use of bioplastics.
You don't have to become a scientist, you are a designer. Get an impression of what the properties of your materials are and try to think of possible application
11g Glycerine
80ml Water
3g Agar
This was my first ever created recipe. I chose to make it as flexible as possible by using a lot of glycerine. I forgot to scoop out the froth, so it could have turned out clearer. I casted it in a serving ring taped on on a glass plate.
At first I thought not removing the froth was a mistake, but it turns out that it casts an interesting textured shadow in direct sunlight.
The final product is very flexible and silicone-like, similar to a baking mat. It has no smell and is slightly sticky, dust stays on the surface. It feels sturdy enough to be stretched.
11g Glycerine
80ml Water
3g Agar
When making hard candies, you can use a pressed mold in powder (powdered sugar, cornstarch) to cast the candies in. The main benefit is that the final products can always be removed from the "molds", and they don't stick. Since I was quite worried this material was going to be sticky, I pressed a little mold in all-purpose flour.
Freshly poured the material looked almost like a wine gum. The surface dried quite fast.
There were some bubbles on the surface that I wasn't quite happy about. I know that when pouring resin, a blowtorch or lighter is used to pop these bubbles. As an amateur pyromaniac I take advantage of any excuse to use my little crème brûlée burner. It unfortunately had no effect. The picture above was post-burning, and there are still some bubbles.
After waiting for 3 days, I picked up the material out of the powder. It had shrunk about 30%. There was some powder that stuck to the material, but I rinsed it off with water. I was surprised at how well the details transferred into the material. The powder did allow for a little more deformation, so it slightly curled up.
What was especially interesting, was the difference from the materials poured on glass. I used the same batch as for the previous material, just in a different mold. It's firm and rubber-like, and it lacks the lightly sticky surface from the previous pour. What I think happened is that the flour extracted the moisture from the material.
11g Glycerine
80ml Water
3g Agar
10g smoked paprika powder
To the leftovers of the clear agar agar batch, I added some smoked paprika for color.
The flexibility is almost identical, although I would say it feels a little more sturdy than the clear agar agar. The surface is a bit rough, but I can't tell if this is because I forgot to scoop off the froth, or because of the smoked paprika. After making this material I decided that I would use color extracts instead of raw materials for color.
11g Glycerine
80ml Tulip extract
3g Agar
I tried to achieve the same flexibility as the clear agar agar again, but this time as clear as possible and with a little color. I used the tulip color extract instead of water.
It casted a water-like shadow in direct sunlight and feels similar to the clear agar agar, but smoother and stickier. You can clearly see the difference in the smoothness of the surface when the froth is removed.
Something in me told me I should slap this on the window, so I did.
After reading this weeks literature, I thought it would be nice to incorporate multiple waste products from the same process, and I chose for the remains of the breakfast I had that morning.
120 Coffee ground dye
1,5g Glycerin
Ground Eggshells
25g Gelatin
I first wanted to leave out the glycerin, so the final product (in theory) would be edible. Last minute I decided to add just a little bit of glycerin for a little flexibility.
First I had to grind the eggshells down to a powder.
I cooked the eggs first. I thought this would kill most of the bacteria, which might prevent mold in the final product. And I also wanted to make egg salad, so it was pretty convenient.
I also removed the layer between the eggshell and egg. I don't know if this is necessary, but I thought it might cause trouble when grinding it down to a powder.
I just got a new blender, so I was still a bit afraid to throw eggshells in it. Instead i used a grinding stone and used twisting motions to get the eggshells as small as possible.
I wasn't able to grind it down to a fine powder, the largest pieces were still around half a millimeter. I wish I had used white eggs for a more solid look, but the brown pieces still make it recognizable as eggshells which is also nice.
I removed the material from the mold after 3 days, and let it harden for another week.
The material curled up a bit, but is hard and sturdy. The eggshells sunk down and give one side of the material a rough, sandpaper-like finish.
80ml Massala dye
2g Glycerin
3g Agar Agar
Circular piece of cloth
I wanted to use the yellow on a material involving a piece of white fabric Sam put in our bioplastic kits for at home, to see if the color of the spice would still transfer to the fabric. I have no idea what kind of fabric it is. I poured a bit of the plastic in the petri dish first, put the circular cloth on top and then added some more bioplastic.
After a day not much shrinking had occurred yet and it was still wet and dewy at this point. So I waited for another week to see what would happen.
The material shrunk even further. The color dulled out a little, but is still clearly yellow. I don't know if the actual cloth stained too, or if it's just the material covering it.
190ml Tea
10g Glycerin
30ml Vinegar
3g Cornstarch
No matter how hard I tried, this bioplastic could not be released from its mold. I added a strong tea for some color instead of water. I poured them in different thicknesses. After a day it was way too sticky to be removed from the petri dishes. So I waited.
And I waited and waited. They all shrunk significantly and stayed sticky. The material tore when I tried to peel it out of the mold, or stuck to itself. The thinnest materials didn't let go out of the petri dish at all. The thicker ones were more solid, but very stretchy.
10g Glycerin
160ml Basil dye
3.5g Cornstarch
30ml Vinegar
During the additive manufacturing week Britt and I made a mold for a skull. I was a bit worried, because the previous recipe with cornstarch didn't dry well, but I went for it anyway.
I put the mold together with toothpicks and some tape, and poured the material in. I tried to let it cool off a little because I didn't want to melt the 2d printed mold.
After a day I saw a crack form on the surface. This concerned me a bit, but I waited for another week, since the material felt wet still, even on the surface.
Taking the mold apart was a disaster.
The material tore as soon as I took the mold apart. The insides didn't get the chance to dry at all.
Even though the material didn't dry well, you can still see the details of the 3d mold profiles in it. Both my cornstarch/vinegar recipes didn't turn out well, so maybe i'm doing something wrong.
Projects with a similar goals or methods.
Instead of sending people in need bricks to make buildings, these students (commissioned by LEVS architects and the HvA engineering major) created a tool to make bricks. The people of Mali can use their local resources to create these bricks that can be dried in the sun.
Not only did they make the tool easy enough to be shipped to Mali, they provided a non-verbal manual, since it's hard to translate the indigenous languages, and some people are even illiterate.
A product that gives toilet users the possibility to open a door without touching it. What I like about this solution is that it's simple and universal. You can still use the traditional way of using the door if you want to.
The inspiration for this design was the 2003 SARS outbreak in Hong Kong, which unfortunately killed many citizens. I think this is an amazing idea, but it is not feasible to apply this design on every door in a short term. It requires a power supply for every door, has to be installed professionally and is relatively expensive. What i'm looking for in this project is a quick fix. Maybe this might be a valuable investment if we don't find a cure for the virus soon.
The ApolloBVM is an automated bag valve mask (BVM) device utilizing off-the-shelf components to provide safe and continuous hospital-grade mechanical ventilation for COVID-19 patients on an open-source basis. The ApolloBVM is a controllable, automated add-on solution to the existing and widely available Bag Valve Mask. The device compresses the BVM with a mechanical system that is able to provide consistent and accurate ventilation with positive-pressure. This solution exists within the top range of high-acuity limited-operability (HALO) ventilator solutions with an a priori design to produce volume and pressure cycled ventilation that includes positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) and enriched oxygen sources. - Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen
What I love about this project is that the developers used existing devices and automatized it with relatively accessible consumer technology. They already went through a few iterations, and currently (21 April 2020) have a version 2 available. They have CNC templates available for free, and even though it requires a laser cutter and a 3d printer, I think this project has great accessibility. It's a perfect "last resort" product now that there's a great demand for ventilators.
27 February - 4 March
This week we will be using the laser cutter. I am no stranger to this device, I've used it since my first year at CMD. For my SRP points I also taught a class at the Metis Montessori Lyceum in Amsterdam. We taught the first year high school students how to use illustrator and designing shapes. We made keychains with the students on the laser cutter out of wood and acrylic. It was fun to use the laser cutter, but it's safe to say i'll never teach a class of 13-year-olds again.
3 years ago, assembling one of the first boxes I made on the laser cutter.
Showcase the contrast of two opposing material properties using sheet material and a lasercutter. Fate has decided that I will be exploring the contrast between rigid and flexible materials.
Movement has no impact on the shape of the object.
The shape alters and moves freely when disturbed.
The individual pieces are rigid, but they behave flexible as a whole.
A middle ground: Movement may alter the overall shape, but the original formation of shapes stays the same.
I chose to use 5mm plywood, simply because I like working with it and it is easy to cut with the laser cutter. I also like that you can use many other techniques on plywood which are already well documented. I bought a 2 square meter sheet at Gamma for €5.
I used the Makerslab library cutting presets for 4mm soft plywood.
I want don't want to make the final product fully flexible. Instead I want to remain some static elements. Plywood is very unlikely to ever be flexible like a fabric, so hard pieces are almost inevitable.
A chainmail is made by interlocking metal ringlets. There is no other material involved to make the otherwise stiff metal behave flexible.
NASA developed their own variation on the classic chainmail, using flat panels to close the gaps between the ringlets while maintaining the flexibility and durability of the original system.
This (very expensive) chainmail inspired skirt that consists of multiple panels connected to each other.
In chronological order of creation
5mm plywood, Hot glue, Denim (scavenged from AMFI's sample pile)
One of the first things that came to my mind when I thought of the word flexible was fabric. Although not very flexible, I chose denim because I thought the wooden tiles would adhere well to it. It takes a bit of force, but the material is indeed flexible.
The space between the wooden tiles widens and narrows when the material is being bent. Hot glue might not have been the best choice to adhere the two materials. When choosing a type of glue, make sure it will not become hard when dry, or you will lose the flexibility of the fabric.
5mm plywood (lasercut), Hot glue, Mesh lace trim (bought at the market)
For this sample I used the same wood and pattern pieces, but changed the fabric. Inspired by mosaic bathroom tiles that come glued on mesh, I found that a material that has holes in it will allow the hot glue to adhere way better.
There is a noticeable difference in flexibility, the denim even seems stiff compared to the mesh. The light mesh allows air to pass trough, and makes the wood the most important element of the formation.
The best way to glue the tiles to the material without having it stick to your working surface is to fix the fabric on a jar with a rubber band, so there is nothing touching the glue.
48 rings made of 5mm plywood (lasercut)
After experimenting on fabrics, I decided that I wanted to try to avoid incorporating another medium to give the plywood it's flexibility. I used a classic chainmail pattern to create this material. It consists solely of wooden ringlets.
When making ringlets for a chainmail, make sure that the material can bend slightly to allow it to latch onto other ringlets. If the material is too stiff it might break. You can try to control this by changing the width of the ringlets to allow for more strength, or pick a thinner material for more flexibility. Some of the ringlets still broke, but if you are careful it's not very difficult. Interlocking the ringlets took me about 10 minutes.
Sometimes when you're not careful enough a ringlet breaks. You can control the sturdiness of your ringlets by changing the width or the material. You can see all the layers of plywood, and how the orientation of the grain of the wood alternates every layer to create a stronger material.
This is a previous version of the chainmail, with 4cm diameter ringlets. This material was too large to be put in the sample box, but moved the same way as the final product.
There is quite a lot of waste product when cutting the ringlets the way I did. This might be something you want to take into consideration.
48 rings made of 3mm uncoated cardboard (lasercut)
Bending the wooden ringlets takes quite some force, and I was looking for a way to assemble the chainmail easier and faster. Using the same file on the lasercutter, I tried to create the ringlets out of cardboard.
A simple change in material gives the construction a very different feeling from the same wooden construction. Also notice how the sound of a material has an impact on the way it feels.
Although the bending of the materials was indeed way easier, It was not convenient to work with the cardboard on the laser cutter. The burnt cardboard transfers onto everything and leaves quite a mess. My hands were completely black and I left fingerprints everywhere. I also find that there is still too much friction between the individual ringlets, and I am not a fan of the way it moves.
Instead of using the cutting presets for 4mm soft plywood, I used the presets for 3mm cardboard.
25 tiles made of 4mm plywood (lasercut), 0.205 mm Sufix fishing line
I decided that if I was going to use a medium to join tiles, I didn't want it to be as noticeable as the fabric. I chose fishing line as it is almost invisible.
It took ages to do this. I found that I didn't have much control on the tension of the line. It is slippery and I kept losing the line because, you guessed it, it's almost invisible.
I do like the final outcome, as it is very flexible and the slippery fishing line causes barely any friction.
I initially tried a different type of tile, but the shape was very uncomfortable and hard to join using the fishing line. The holes were too close together and there wasn't much allowance for flexibility because of the shape and the size of the tiles.Therefore I resorted to simple tiles that can be joined by spiraling the line through holes.
The laser cutter chooses a random path to cut out the tiles. For parametric design, it's better to design one single tile that you can copy and paste, but as you can see here this means that the laser cutter cuts some lines twice. This can cause burns or uneven edges.
I used tape to keep the tiles aligned when stitching them together.
25 tiles made of 5mm plywood (lasercut), 40 2mm zip ties
After spending quite some time looking for the fishing line I kept losing, I wanted to find an easier way of joining the tiles together. Here you can see that the material loses almost all of its flexibility. There is a lot of friction between the zip ties and the tile. This can be due to the fact that the zip ties are pulled quite tight, or because of the material of the zip ties. Also the zip ties were never meant for the purpose of allowing the material it bonds to move. Quite the contrary, because they are made to immobilize the materials they bond and keep them in place.
We now know that the method of joining the tiles has a huge impact on the flexibility.
20 5mmx100mm tiles of 5mm plywood (lasercut), 0.205 mm Sufix fishing line
Even though I didn't want to, I resorted back to using the fishing line as a joining method as it had the low friction and high flexibility I wanted.
I really didn't feel like going through the horror of having to stitch the fishing line through 225 holes again, so inspired by continuous tracks on off-road vehicles, I made the tiles long and narrow. This way there were also less joining points needed in the material, which made it fast and easy to connect the tiles.
I like how consistently the material bends. The fishing line also allows for some horizontal shifting of the tile formation.
Part of the assignment was to put the created materials in a sample book. I decided to put all the samples in a box on hangers, because i wanted the materials to have the ability to move. I also want to engage the "reader" to touch and feel the objects, pass them around, or compare them to their own project.
I used Makercase for the finger-jointed box. I used the same plywood i used for my samples.
I added this document as a reference for each sample.
This way readers in the Makerslab can immediately recreate the techniques.
summer_week2_materialproperties.pdf
For me this was quite an easy and laid back week. It definitely helped that I was already quite experienced with the machine, so i didn't have to spend much time on figuring that out. Most of my files were created in mere minutes. The idea that my material was very cheap made me feel comfortable, I was not afraid to make any mistakes which I sometimes am when using expensive material, so i will use cheap materials in the future too if that eases my mind.
I was still sick during the kickoff, so I didn't really know that there should be a "gradient" in the created material properties. Instead my research is a journey of creating the product that shows the property contrast the best. I'm very happy with the end result and the concept of my "sample book"
A step towards fighting the COVID-19 virus. I will be working on this project during the second half of the Makerslab minor.
For content, please view the notion page.
This week we will be design and print 3d models, which is something i've never done before.
Even though I have designed for CNC machines before, I think designing in Fusion360 might be a bit of a challenge for me. The only 3D software i've used before is Unity, which was definitely fun, but very difficult. As you can see in the following video, things like scaling might turn out different than you expect when you're used to 2D objects.
This was also our last week before the school closed, so unfortunately we didn't get the opportunity to remake our prints.
This weeks assignment:
In pairs (partner = Britt de Heer), you will design and print three different molds that can be used in the open material archive.
The aim of these molds is to be able to reproduce material experiments with the same mold but different materials.
These molds should create textural experiments for the casted material.
3D printing is a relatively new technology that was very hyped up by the media at one point. Avoid using 3d printing just to be able to slap this trendy title on your product. There are many downsides to 3D printing, the main one being that it takes a very long time. Take this in consideration when you choose a method to create your object.
Decide on if you want to use formative, subtractive or additive manufacturing based on the amount of objects you need.
Decide if 3D printing is the best option.
Decide which material to use.
Producing a 3D file
STL creation and file manipulation
Printing
Removal of prints
Post processing
During my time at the CMD major I often had to figure out how programs work on short notice. My usual strategy is to spend only one day on getting to know the basics of the program. Then I assume I know how to do it, and start my project. This usually leads to swearing to my computer and watching a lot of tutorials on Youtube. This time was no exception.
In class we had a short workshop on Fusion360, and it seemed fairly easy. I immediately knew I wanted to make a marble track. Something I almost regretted later. I made a little sketch on what I wanted it to look like.
I didn't feel like drawing at that moment, so I thought this scribble would be enough. It should represent a gutter that spirals down into a square. I thought this design could just be a bunch of ramps that intersected each other. Boy was I wrong.
First try. I made a nice gutter by extruding a profile and tilted it to make it a ramp. Then I also wanted the gutter to make a 90º turn. Somehow I thought I could just intersect these two and call it a day. Sadly, the sides of the gutter would block the path for the marble to roll down. I thought I could come up with a way to cut this intersection and remove the walls I didn't need, but this was harder than expected. I didn't really think this through. Let's ditch this method.
Second try. I figured that if i'd just make flat ramps with straight walls, I could shorten certain walls to leave a gap for the marble to pass through. The marble passed through, but the corners were still awkward. The marble technically would fall down, but it just looks very unflattering.
Third try. I looked around the toolbar and found a (seemingly) perfect tool called "sweep". I could sweep the gutter profile from the first try along a spiraled path. Even CAD-expert Kaj had never tried this, approved of this idea. I quickly sketched out the dimensions and got to work.The values are the height of the corners in mm. The green line is the path that has to be drawn.
I tested it on a single path with a corner first, and it worked out well at first sight, so I proceeded to draw out the whole spiral in sketches. This took a hours.
In order to be able to still make these tight corners, the sweep function rotated the profile, which is interesting but not exactly what we were looking for. After hours of getting the initial path in place, this was quite disappointing. I'm not really in control to what happens to the orientation of the profile with the sweep tool, so I decided not to use it.
Fourth try. At this point I got very frustrated and was ready to settle for the bare minimum. I accepted that It was hard to make the take corner without a transitional space in between. I decided to to for a simple design that wouldn't look as polished as I initially wanted, but at least it would get a marble rolling. I also chose to first make a test with less windings in the spiral, to see if i'd like the outcome.Another very simple sketch.I had no idea what to do for the start of the track. I 'd also still have to come up with a way to make walls around it.
This design consists of multiple ramps with leveled platforms in the corners.
I figured it would work but I was very unhappy with the result. I missed the semi circular gutter I originally had. I also thought the sharp angles wouldn't make the marble pass through the corner smoothly. I decided to look at my third try again and analyze where it went wrong.
This is when I had my eureka moment.
Fifth try. The problem was clearly that the ramps would not connect well. What we needed was a leveled corner piece. As we saw in the last try. We could still create this leveled corner piece based on the profile of the gutter. Since it's flat, we can reuse it at multiple places in the design.
Now all i'd have to do is connect the corner pieces with the gutters.
This model can be used for CNC drilling or 3D printing in one piece. It fits a regular sized marble (around 12 mm ø)
Decide what you want the profile of your gutter to look like. I chose a semi circular cutout, but this can be anything you like. Pay attention to the size of the gutter, so the marble you have can pass through.
We want this profile to stay consistent throughout the design. Lock the dimensions by pressing D and selecting the ribs. All the black lines are locked and can't be changed.
We want the corner piece to be leveled so we can reuse it for all the corners. Revolve the selected plane 90, using one of the outer ribs as the revolving axis.
Copy and paste this shape until you have ramps enough for your design.
Think about where you want the corner pieces to be. Put them in the right place on the XY plane. If the corner pieces don't touch, the gutters you create later won't cross each other.
Elevate the corner pieces to the desired height.
We are going to create the ramps with the loft tool. The loft tool generates a transitional body between two sketches.
Note that only one end on the revolved corner piece is a sketch. In order make the other profile side a sketch too, create a plane on the surface of the profile, and project the profile on said plane by holding P and selecting the profile.
Select the two sketches, and use the loft tool. You can find it in the toolbar under
Solid > Create > Loft
Repeat this until you have all the ramps that you need.
Don't delete the sketches after you've created your ramps
You don't have to use the profile of an object to execute the loft, just a sketch will do as well. In my design the track doesn't end on a corner piece. It ends with a straight ramp that ends with the bottom of the gutter on ground level. To achieve this you can place a sketch under ground level and loft. We can remove all the material under the XY plane later.
If you made the gutter profile symmetrical, you can create a leveled rounded starting piece like I did. You could also use this as an end piece.
Project the profile of your corner ramp onto a new sketch. Add a line down the exact middle of your gutter shape.
Select the part you want to revolve, and revolve 180º using the middle rib as the revolving axis.
Since this model is for for the 3d printer the ramps cant just be floating in space. We need to create support, and we have to make sure the bottom is leveled.
Select the (leveled) bottom profiles of the corner pieces. Extrude them downwards. Extrude to the extent of an object. Choose the XY plane in the origin as the object to extent to.
I had a hard time adjusting the height of the corner pieces after i finished the design. I used the join body operation, but in the future i'd rather use the new body method, so I can remove the support without removing the gutter as well.
If we'd extrude the bottom profiles of the ramps the same way, they would extrude at an angle and not straight down. We have to take a different approach for those.
Create a sketch on the XY plane. Project the profile of the undersides of the ramps to this sketch. Now that you have a rectangle thats exactly under your ramp, extrude this shape upwards to the extent of the ramp.
Remember that last ramp? Part of the shape is still under the XY plane. We can cut this away by creating a sketch on the XY plane, extrude it downwards and use "cut" as the operation. Everything within the extrusion will be deleted.
Because we have rounded corners there are some awkward gaps in the design. This can cause some trouble if you want to make this model on a CNC drill, or if you plan on making a cast out if the model.
Locate the gap in your model, and select the two inner ribs of he gutter.
Go to the toolbar and create a plane that crosses these two ribs
Construct > Plane Through Two Edges
Extrude a sketch on the XY plane upward to the extent of the plane you just created, just like we did for the ramp.
Do this for every gap in your design.
If the planes are obstructing your view, you can hide them in the browser. Do not delete them, the extrusion is related to the planes.
I liked the end result, but in hindsight its higher than necessary, so it costs quite a lot of material. This could be fixed easily if I didn't join all the support to the gutters and corner pieces. I might go back and change this later. I also don't really like that the rounded corner pieces leave such big gaps. so i might come up with something different.
After putting blood sweat and tears into designing this design it was finally time to print it. We printed it at a 0.2 mm profile with 15% infill. For the material Britt and I chose fluorescent yellow and semi translucent PLA. The other object in there is a 3 piece mold of a skull that we wanted to print simultaneously to save time.
Our mistake: In Cura we looked at the amount of PLA we needed to have, which was around 10m . The roll was almost empty, but more than 10m so we figured we'd be good. We uploaded the file to the printer, but a few layers in we realized we accidentally set the infill to 0%. We changed the infill and forgot to remeasure the amount of material that was necessary to complete the print. But it's not a total waste, since we can now take a look at the infill and the overall quality of the print.
Since I didn't want to come to the show & tell session empty handed. I quickly printed a tiny low quality version. And unfortunately Murphy's law also applied here.0.4mm nozzle, 0.2mm profile, 5% infill
Because I wanted the print to be done as fast as possible, so I thought id make the infill very low so there would be less material to print. Unfortunately this didn't create enough support at certain places. Some corners are caved in and there were a few burnt pieces of material that stuck to the nozzle. I did however just print this to have something physical to bring to show & tell, so at least it has served that purpose. I might be able to roll a bearing ball down this track, but I couldn't find one to test it out.
Part of the assignment was to make a 2.5D mold that we could cast later.
Print the object on the 3D printer.
Vacuform the 3D object to make a mold.
Britt found a model of brains, which she cut in half in Fusion360. We cut it in half so it would sit flat on the vacuform bed, and so it would be easy to remove out of the mold. We used gold PLA, printed with a 0.4mm nozzle, 0.2mm profile and 10% infill. Unfortunately the printing bed shifted maybe half a millimeter, so there is a slight "glitch" in one of the middle layers, but it's almost unnoticeable.
Beforehand we knew this was a tricky shape for the vacuformer, but we decided to go for it anyway. Initially we thought we could use a regular polystyrene sheet, and don't suck all the air out so it wouldn't get stuck in the crevices. Henk the lab tech told us this is probably not a good idea. He strongly suspected that the object was never going to release from the mold. He gave us a sheet of 1mm EVA foam instead , because if the material of the mold is flexible the object can almost always be released.
The formed mold was very detailed, you could even see the printing layers on the inside. The foam wasn't sucked into every crevice of the brain, but this was ok for our purpose. It might be a bit challenging to cast this mold, because it's quite flexible, but we will worry about this later and i'm sure we can find something that works by that time.
The first few tries I messed up because I didn't think about the design too much. I had a vague image in my mind, and this was obviously not enough. This is especially not enough if your spacial awareness is not very well (like mine). I have no problem when designing a flat object that folds into a 3D object but I had a hard time understanding how the ramps would intersect when they're tilted on multiple axis. My visualizations were poor too, I could have prevented the first few fails by drawing them out, but since i'm not really good at drawing in perspective I think it's not worth the time to make a 3D sketch on paper. In the future I might use another medium as a first physical prototype, like legos or clay. It's faster and I will get a better understanding of shapes.
For the brains Britt and I got a little too excited about 3D printing, and we chose very difficult shapes for our molds. They were way too complex to model ourselves after a short workshop about 3D modeling, so after struggling for quite a while we chose existing models and manipulated them, but they were never meant for the exact purpose. I wish we had more time to learn how to use Fusion360, so we could
I did enjoy using Fusion360 a lot, but there are many different approaches to the same problems. It sometimes was a bit overwhelming to sit besides multiple people who are interested in what i'm doing, cause I got a little overwhelmed by the advice. I think i'll work on my own a little more often.
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This week's Zine: Reflect on what your responsibilities are as a maker/designer for making objects and the impact they have on people, society and the environment. Create your own manifesto. Discuss how you used this in your process this week, and how it's (an aspect of) your work. 150 words and a visual.
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How does a 3d printer work? From file to machine.
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Will people still use it? Probably not. Maybe we could make community 3d printers more accessible. Maybe even a mail service?
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As a consumer, is it necessary for us to create products? Make not only products, but also tools yourself. Custom products fast and (relatively cheap), produced on site.
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Creative commons license. Who can use my files and work? What is a difference between a patent and a license?
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Why disruptive? A shortcut from the normal steps to have an object made.
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When and why would you choose to 3d print? When the part we need is unavailable.
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Making bad products.You can also make weapons. Do we want this to happen? What is a bad product?
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How to patent a 3d printed object? Do you patent the file? Do you patent the shape?
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The maker's bill of rights. Is this a bunch of bullshit or not?
In my life I have owned 6 smartphones, which means that the average lifespan of my phones is about a year. I am a clumsy person and I use my phone all the time which will lead to the inevitable breaking of my device from time to time. Especially nowadays when brands keep pushing the prices of their flagship models to the limit, I cannot simply afford a new one. Out of necessity (and slight curiosity) I started repairing my own devices.
It is the year 2014. I dropped my first budget Samsung model in the toilet. The rice trick wasn't common knowledge yet, so immediately I snapped open my phone, took the battery out and wrapped it in toilet paper in hopes of saving it. To no avail. I googled for a bit, and with the screwdrivers I had lying around my house and a toothbrush I got my phone to work again.
2015 comes around. When the iPhone 6 released I bought my friend's old iPhone 4. I dropped it on the bathroom floor. Yes it was the one with the glass back, and I broke it (why did they make it out of glass in the first place). For €10 I found a new back cover online. This time around it wasn't as easy as the Samsung. They shipped 5 point star screwdriver with the parts, otherwise I couldn't open it.
After these instances I repaired a few more of my phones. Throughout the years it had become harder and harder to replace certain parts, from broken audio jacks to home buttons. I had to order more obscure tools like screwdrivers, guitar picks and suction cups to try to open up these devices. I had to scrape away glue. I had to melt off certain parts with a heat gun. It was a fight against these devices to repair them.
Last December. I was at a party. By this time I had my OnePlus 5t for two years. It was expensive (for me) and I want to make it as last as long as possible. I have a history of dropping my phones and therefore buy my screen protectors by the dozen. I dropped it from a height of 2 meters and the touch screen stopped working. There is not a screw in sight on this device and I already know that there will be about 5 oddly shaped bolts inside that I can't unscrew. Defeated I brought my phone to the repair shop. Where they charged me €130 for a new AMOLED screen. A slap in the face for a college student.
Now I proudly present all my broken phones in my room on a shelf. As a reminder that I should be careful with my devices, because the days that I can repair them myself are in the past now.My shelf of broken devices. Not just smartphones, but also half a MacBook and a magic mouse (the amount of broken apple products in my collection is... interesting).
