Digital Fabrication » hexagonal cell

Fabrication process

iaac — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 10:24:49 +0000

This work is a collaboration between Ayber Gülfer and Jordi Portell and describes the fabrication process for the Lego-like-brick exercise in the Digital Fabrication Tools class.

The nurbs modell was converted to a mesh and exported as *.stl in order to send it to the fabrication laboratory.

Brick as nurbs beeing modelled in Rhino 4.0. Unifying the parts.

Nurbs transformed into mesh in order to submit to fabrication.

We rendered the modell with Blender 2.54 to see the final result. We assigned materials and lights in order to have a realistic look at the piece before fabricating.

Model checked and rendered in Blender 2.54 (view b).

Model checked and rendered in Blender 2.54 (view a).

We submited the file to the FabLab and where notified by the assistants that our model had no problems and could be fabricated in the first batch.

We went to the FabLab and recovered our fabricated modell with the colleagues that had their modell fabricated in the same bunch.

Cleaning the first powder layer. A batch of 4 bricks in the machine.

Cleaning the surface once removed from the machine.

Getting rid of the powder.

The most powder removed. One can see the general form.

Removing the powder from the inside with a paint brush.

Last operations before completion.

Cleaning the remaining powder from interstices with pressurised air.

The finished brick ready to be reinforced by projecting glue on it.

Finished modell where the fabrication layers can be seen.

The brick at Iaac. A rest of fabrication powder remained in the inner edges and has to bee cleaned.

A beehive as a case study for additive digital fabrication?

iaac — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 21:29:38 +0000

Bees
One can see bees as perfect, small machines fabricating with high precision wax honeycombs to protect their larvae and store honey and pollen.
They are ‘programmed’ to reproduce in an endless series a very optimised structure of hexagonal cells with very thin walls. This construction is fabricated by bees producing their own construction material and applying it in a geometrically perfect structure which optimises material consumption.
The closed end of the honeycomb is also perfect in terms of material and space use (section of a rhombic dodecahedra) and gives rigidity to the whole structure.

A honeycomb in the 'fabrication' process. wikipedia / Makro Freak / 2007-06-04

Closed bottom of honeycomb cells. wikipedia / Waugsberg / 2007-08-31

Living wicker walls
The fabrication of baskets is based in a technique that waves natural fibres in a very robust hull where the skin is the structure: a very old additive fabrication method used by humans that implies a small amount of operations laid down in tradition.
Forming walls of woven living wicker is a ‘construction’ technique resulting in very stable structures which grow for themselves. Can this be considered additive fabrication? The plant grows by accumulating cells. The ‘architect’ just waves the branches when they are flexible and waits until they grow. This results, by all means, in a very slow fabrication process!

Wicker basket walls, detail. (cc)by-sa / R.Portell / 2010-10-18

Living wicker construction. (cc)by-sa / R.Portell / 2010-10-18