Structure Collab Final Week

And we've made it. Half dead, and really sleepless.

I am glad to see that this project has come together, although I am not sure we are going to get it painted... Perhaps next semester a little side project for the team? 

I know that part of the team was in the wood shop today, and due to the mess up last week I was unable to be there today, but I look forward to bringing the pieces together tomorrow with the team. Fingers crossed all the pieces fit together. Thank goodness for the nifty definition that Bryan made for the slots and taking hours out of even more tedious work. 

Things are looking good. 

If these pieces turn out half as good as the renders, I think we have some really wicked pieces to share with the AuArts Student body. 

This project could have used another week, as I do not know where this semester went. I hope that these projects make it into the nest for future use by the student body. Thank you to the team, and a huge thank you to Bryan for all the hard work, for going above and beyond, and giving us the opportunity to do this collab project. I am sure I am not the only one with lots of take away's, and lessons. 

Thank you OBDF 310 team 2 - May the force be with you. 

Cheers, 

Jess  

Structure Collab Week 3

Okay so, I learned a very valuable lesson. Always build your stuff in Grasshopper, and although Rhino may seem faster, it never is.  

I spent countless hours building tabs in rhino only to have to re-do it again in Grasshopper, I am hours behind in all my studies and been paying for this mistake big time. 

I was pretty proud of the work that I had done in Rhino as it was very time consuming to create all the tabs, and not realizing if the supplies changed, that all the geometry would need to be changed as well. 

Further to this debacle, there was a scaling issue from the original model and I moved forward with the scaled model vs the original and that made for an even bigger mess. All in all, the team came together and we were able to get it figured out. 

I wasn't sure how to move forward with a definition in Grasshopper, and the process seemed like it would take longer than in Rhino. Here is my original model with tabs. 

So to build in Grasshopper, I remembered Bryan saying that everything Rhino can do, Grasshopper can do it too. 

 I began with a lot of construction points. 

Then I built this beast. Doesn't seem like much because it is so repetitive, but it was tricky to get all the layers, extrusions and directions correct. I am pleased how this turned out, as I wasn't feeling confident I would be able to do this. Grasshopper is still overwhelming to me, and I do have a lot more comfort with Rhino. 

BEAST!! 

In the end, I was getting solid results for the most part. I needed help from the team to finish it up, as all of the geometry for the shelf unit was also built in Rhino and was therefore the wrong thickness. I still have yet to sort out Re-map numbers (the one sider to rule them all). Not sure if that would work in this case? Also, I wonder if there was a less tedious way of building the tabs? 

I wish we would have reduced the number of shelves to make this project a little more manageable, as this was a difficult and overly ambitious project. I hope the rest of it goes smoothly and we get it painted. I was able to secure some decently priced spray paint for the team, and Daniela picked it up from the deep south. Thanks team for a solid week! 

Until I write again, I will be catching up for all the lost time, but I have learned so much. 

Cheers, 

J 

Structure Collab Week 2

 Been a busy week! We met as a group last Friday and showed our ideas and designs, and decided to do a desk and bench in the nest. A multi functional piece of furniture that we could share with the student body. We broke up into three groups to divide and conquer. I am apart of the desk group and was tasked with creating a design to present to the group on Wednesday night. In thinking of construction, and what a CNC machine can do, as well as replicating the design of the facade of the nest I came up with the below. 

My thoughts were around creating a structure that wasn't too heavy, and would still allow for light to flow through the space as the nest is not a very large space. With tabs this would be self aligning and really easy to put together post machining. 

A unique design that is unlike anythings else in the school, this art deco inspired piece is light, functional and unobtrusive. 

The group concluded to go with Daniela's geometric interactive design, with a very creative bench that is a hybrid of Nadia's bench and Erica's bench design. The pattern from Daniela's shelves will also be incorporated into the bench as well to tie the two pieces together. I am a little concerned about the amount of work we have to do to get done in the time given, but have confidence in the group that we will pull it off. 

Until next week... 

J. Broz signing off. 

Structure Collab Week 1

 Week 1 well underway. 

Our group met briefly on Friday and came up with a plan to share some ideas and research by Monday at 5pm, so we could then discuss all the ideas on Wednesday during our meet up. 

Lots of great ideas came down the pipeline! Erica brought to the table some really neat designs that are a fun mix between geometric and organic lines. Lesley suggested some great lighting designs with wooden chandeliers. Liro with a multi functional bench. Yuxin found some really cool designs for furniture that are really innovative. Chloe shared some really cool CNC designs that are both 3D and 2D. I am inspired by the designs that Nadia shared, and pieces that permeate space, like room dividers. Daniela shared some amazing designs as well, and had a ton of colour - which I love. 

My thoughts for this project were to do something for the student body that could be used in the school. I was considering The Nest, or the Cafeteria as a location and I thought of Napping Pods or Working Spaces that could be semi-private for those deep study needs. 

Napping Pods:

There is nothing I would love more than a place to have a quick snooze between class, or while I wait on my project before I can move forward with it. Studies show that having napping pods increases productivity of employees and students. 

https://www.corporatewellnessmagazine.com/article/employers-waking-benefits-sleep-pods

University of Miami have added nap pods in their university to help combat stress and mental health issues that affect students. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrTssn03DMk

Working Spaces:

Despite the addition of new furniture around the school I find that semi private study spaces are hard to come by, or a space where you just need a little down time to collect your thoughts after a crit. Here are some ideas I shared with the team. 

On Wednesday after sharing our ideas we determined that we would like to move forward with a piece that could benefit students. We feel that because the materials are being provided for us, we would like to give that back to the student body is an indoor, a working space, and multi-functional. 

We accomplished a lot in a week and meet tomorrow (Friday) to pitch our designs to each other and see what we love and what we get excited about. Our biggest challenge is narrowing down the options, and required the extra step to show each other a design. 

I am pitching a privacy screen to work with a seating space. A moveable 4' x 4' wall that could create a little sanctuary students can retreat behind. I am so obsessed with creating patterns similar to the one from my Lample, and I would love to see it in full scale (it is all I can think about). I think putting it on a support with wheels could make this a safe, and fun addition to any space in the university. I envision this being colourful like Daniela's design suggestions. Here is my quick and dirty render, I realized after creating this that I would need to round out all of the edges as the CNC can not do corners the way they are drawn in this render. I used only Rhino for this example, however I was thinking about how Grasshopper was much better to work with and designing the definition in my mind while creating this. 

I had a lot of fun playing with this design and started to explore options of different thicknesses of the curves and how that changes the movement in them. I look forward to sharing this idea with the team even if we don't move forward with it, it was fun playing with this design again. I hope we finalize ideas tomorrow and get to work, because there is no shortage of things to do. 

Cheers. 

Lample - Major Progress

 It is coming along and I am in absolute love with this object! I still have a way to go as I continue through multiple iterations of this piece, I think this is the 5th or 6th? Anyway, I realized as I put this together that the pieces don't fit together as well as they would if it were made of metal. I think I need a beveled edge that the pieces fit into. I would like to also see this in an opaque material, although I think there is something really cool to the clear acrylic. I am also interested in frosting the acrylic too. Unfortunately I didn't have money to buy a light for this iteration of my Lample, but on my final it will have a light for sure! I love that I have gotten this far with this unconventional piece and I hope to bring it across the finish line with a full scale model. 

I think that this would look good in any kind of material and I look forward to exploring a few options before I do my final full scale model. 

Here's hoping I get to bring this piece to full scale, and add it to my studio as my new lamp and table. 

J 

Milestone Project - Visual Documentation

 Greetings. 

Here's my Lample!

It has been a very long time since I have rendered... not sure why it looks so blurry. 

Long road to get to this. I needed to re-create my definition from scratch from last week as I had just so much junk in my definition. I had a hard time with dispatch even though we went through it during my 1:1 time. As soon as I started to mess with it, it stopped working and it took a while to figure it out again. I did figure out a work around, however Bryan's way was way cleaner. I also lost all my geometry on this one so, I had to rebuild... Le sigh. It did go faster the third time around, but set me back nonetheless. 

Countless hours in front of my computer, and watching Youtube videos, I wish I had something more impressive to show. My biggest challenge was getting the bake to work, as I would get three different poly surfaces. I tried multiple things, and also reached out to a classmate who suggested deconstruct brep, and then Cull Item, then merge. I had troubles sorting out the surfaces in list management. I could have made this Lample from steel, cut out my curves with a plasma cutter, welded, and finished in the time it took me to create this. 

I would like to talk about a few things before I attempt my final, as the curves just aren't where I want them to be, yet. 

Materials: I think I will make this out of plexy - I would rather do it out of aluminum but I am not sure I can afford the materials to do so. 

Design Inspiration: I did some research on popular furniture trends and I hated everything I saw as everything is so micro-functional. I like objects that are multi-functional and perhaps because I have lived in an apartment for 10 years I like to keep objects in my life to a minimum, and maximize space. This piece is for my small studio space to provide light, and a table for my tea. Currently I am exploring Bridget Riley's work and I am really interested in organic lines, and optical art. 

Cheers, 

Jess 

Parametric Furniture Concept

Yo! Happy Thursday. 

I would like to make a table lamp on the CNC Machine. Here are my thoughts and attempts at working these problems out in my good friends Rhino and Grasshopper. 

First I started with a sketch. Can't draw to save my life, but you get the idea. 

Then I did it with cardboard to start working through possible geometry and definition before I hit the computer. 

Ready to get started on my design, I began in Rhino as I am more comfortable with the tools in Rhino and the translation between Rhino and Grasshopper is a challenge for my brain, but a welcome one.  

Many Challenges as you can see. I am really excited about this concept though and went into Grasshopper to begin the process of creating this. Here is my beginning definition. 

Challenges:

Shell - Could not figure out how to get this to work. 

Fillet - Could not sort this out either. Had trouble with defining the curve, when I selected my Brep Join it went red on me. Not 100% Sure where to assign the geometry. 

Curve - I would like to be able to break the curve down and alter it. I did build the wiggle curve in Rhino, moved it and then assigned the curve in Grasshopper. 

Things I would like to learn:

Wiggle Curve - The curve shape how I can scale this to different sizes, is it possible to array the curve and then add it to the poly surface before doing a SDiff? I would like to be able to remove negative space from all sides of the surface and different on each surface. I can't even begin to comprehend how to move forward with that. 

Interlocking edges - The other idea I have is to have interlocking edges to put this together. I wonder if I need to build each individual piece and then put them together? 

Eventually I would like to install a light in the bottom section of this table, and then also have a glass pane on the top surface. In a perfect world, I would love one of the edges of the table to open with hinges for easy access to the inside and be able to change the light when needed. 

Lots of work to do and lots of help needed. Looking forward to bringing this idea to life. 

Thanks! See you tomorrow.