Category: Spring 2018

Birthday bracelet

This idea came from the process when I thought about the parameters. They control the final shape and different variable quantities can have different results. It seems like gene and DNA. It is a magic process for us and make us different. Therefore, I tried to use information that has the closest relationship with us. Birthday came to my mind. It’s number so that it is a perfect medium to combine people and bracelet.

I define the day, month and year in grasshopper, which are responsible for the shape and pattern of the bracelet. You can also change the wrist size depending on yourself. The most important of my design is remap, which can help me to control the parameters in an appropriate range so that we can get variable results in perfect shapes. Everyone can get their special bracelet typing their birthday in grasshopper.

What’s more, I tried to print 5 families at the end. It’s wonderful to see my own work in realistic world. However, the process is painful. I need to test the material and thickness in many times to get the perfect shape and make sure there’s no problems in printing process. Fortunately, I get a great five families and I feel this is totally worth it.

 

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Design explorer: http://tt-acm.github.io/DesignExplorer/?ID=KQgYDw

          For the product family project, I have developed a container system that has a curvy profile and twirling form. The material of the products is a thin layer of plastic, allowing light to penetrate through the product. The series of products are designed specifically for the dining program, including candlesticks, candle holder, pendant light, vase, and container for various purposes. The twisting, curving forms set a fun mood with elegance.

          The product begins with a simple octagon. The geometry is offset and weaved to create the starry shape. The geometry is copied 6 times with even distances and lofted to create a volume. The profile is set by a list of numbers, acting as factors to control the profile of a selected product. When the radius or the height changes, the profile factors are scaled to accommodate different sizes and height. Each layer of geometry is then rotated by a certain degree so, when lofted, the form appears to be twisting. The bottom geometry is capped and combined with the loft surface to create a mesh. The meshes are welded and triangulated to produce a more accurate form. Inconsistencies in meshes are also fixed for a more desired, printable mesh. The thickness of mesh is 0.6 mm at this scale of objects to allow light to penetrate through. The input of each design driver: top radius, height, fold, and fin are determined by the range of dimensions in the uses of the products. In the dining setting, everything is smaller and more delicate although the evolution of the products is still evident with different input.

          The process of this project requires numerous testing and 3D printings of the product. It allows a better understanding of the forms of objects and how they look and feel in reality. It helped me re-think and re-design certain aspects of the project and produce a satisfiable outcome. One of the biggest challenges was to design a profile, give it a character, and make it twist in the desired way. The profile needs to correspond with various uses, such as bowls, containers, candlesticks, etc. When the products are in different sizes, the profile did not work for all of them. Therefore, I scaled the profile according to different radiuses and heights. The shape of the profile was first scaled differently between each layer. Later, I have adopted sine curves and finally moved to carefully selected scaled factors to produce the profile. I have also come to understand better of how fixing meshes can produce different qualities of prints. This project allowed me to practice setting up different drivers of design and how they work together to form a product.

 

1. Radius

2. Folds (offset)

3. Fins

4. Profile factors changed by Radius and Height

5. Skeleton View in action (different folds and radius)

6. Twisting

100 Matrix:

Link to High Res: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1105T3SrIiaJm7TKeFT3uk1jQ2J3adz1I

 

GIF of 100 Products

Printed Products

Design Explorer Link: https://goo.gl/Ehd7sD

 

The project started with the research about the jewelry and accessory. I quite like the sphere shape. I want to create a ball with holes. The holes create a special environment for the leaking light. It also has a function which can hold products. For adding some more interesting detail, I thought about a spiral shape. To achieve that, I tried different ways.

Intentions

initial idea

 

First attempt – Millipede

In the beginning, I tried to use the component ‘ISO SURFACE’of millipede to achieve a surface with holes. It works, also easy to use. By this component, I got very ideal shape and pattern. The spiral is smooth and beautiful. However, when I check with 3D printing department, unfortunately, it’s not printable. The mesh is very very screwy.  Due to there are too many details and some nurs are really sharp therefore the wall thickness is too thin. It’s difficult to keep a balance between printable wall thickness and size while keeping the shape elegant.

unprintable shapes

                                                     spiral shape without holes -printable.

Attempt 2- Voronoi

I don’t have too much time to change the project. So I go back to the very basic sphere model which I did in my midterm project. I tried to use ‘ VORONOI’which plays a similar role, it helps to create cells on the boundary box, then ‘BREP’ to the sphere. For making this project more interesting, I move the original cell in two scales, one inside the sphere while another outside. I also want to get cells in different sizes. To achieve that, I set up the 73 cells into a list, Then I set the size of the cells randomly.

Through this way, the cells are in three scaled group, and they can create various patterns by changing the scale, be sharper, or more round.

  

with scale

without scale

The distance can be adjusted to create the height of each cell. If I adjust the distance and scale at the same time, that’s another shape.

loft and create mesh

 

100 families

3D printings

I tried to print on the campus at first, but they asked for a flat surface at the bottom, so I cut the shapes into two pieces.  Shapeways doesn’t have this requirement.

  accessory lamp

 accessory lamp

accessory

families

accessory

Actually, I designed two independent design projects. However, I think they are different but closely connected. As a geometry, the sphere is beautiful but in the meantime, it’s not so flexible as other polyhedrons. For example, the cylinder has more possibilities with shape and I don’t have too many sliders, it’s still a bit simple.

The process is tough, Grasshopper is cool but really difficult to understand and use. I spend a lot of time to follow different tutorials and find a similar one with my idea then create something new. I often have problems even I did the exact same thing with the tutorial.

 

 

Use a slider to control the iterative of graph mapper.

 

Build a base and merge them into one mesh.

Bake 5 final models.

Adjust it to a reasonable 3D printable scale.

 

 

 

 

 

Simplify the model to control the appearance by two graph mappers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Change another way to build the pipe so that the model is solid and can be printed out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Add more possibility of profile

 

 

 

 

Create the branch