Wave Breaker / Robotic Sand Forming

The purpose of Sand Forming workshop was to explore the potential of using granular materials to produce reusable molds for building elements in concrete. The 4-day workshop covered a variety of matters including basic scripting strategies in Rhino.Python, extensive tooling and prototyping. The application and final modeling would be controlled through an industrial robot, to guarantee sufficient precision and repeatability of the process. At the same time, the research would investigate the relation between design and its application in architecture.

Through manual experiments in soil, the workshop focused initially in developing the proper manipulation tool to achieve the desirable design outcome. After a series of trials with simple and more complicated tools, a nozzle based on a simple cubic geometry was developed and used to get sample patterns in clay. The chosen design was then created and tested in Python. The software would give a full overview of the panel pattern and by simulating the process give feedback about possible machinic limitations. The created geometrical code was used by a Kuka robot that reproduced the digital design in clay. The final panels were created by purring concrete on the formed mold.

This novel method for fabrication enabled the production of uniquely customized prototypes with complex geometries, minimizing the waste that is normally used for formwork.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFfgVNttb4Q&list=LLCWIbn5W0zlD0Aou-QkaBOA&feature=mh_lolz

Posted in Deniz Tumerdem, MARILENA GEORGANTZI, Pavlos Bakagiannis, Students, Theodoros Grousopoulos | Comments closed

SCULPTING with kuka – robotic sand forming

Experimenting with sand and oil , forming the base material for the mold were the initial steps of the workshop. The density of the base material depends on the design of the tool of each group and design outcome which the group wish to achieve.





Posted in Bhavya Vora, Jayanthimala Thangarajan Gokulrajkailash, Jose Starsky Naya Lara, Sasa Jokic, Swethambari Sridharan | Comments closed

Rolling tool

New Technique

The standart technique in Robotic Sand Forming is compressing sand while “tapping” it with the tool. This takes a lot of time, and give you some borders in case of your design.
We wanted to optimize the working time and provide more possibilities for design, creating the rolling tool. With rolling tools we have continuos movement, we can add pattern on the tool, like diagonal one, which can’t be achieved with tapping tool, and we can create the movement path, consisted of lines, but not from surface.

More information about the workshop see using the link below

Robotic Sand Forming

Ordered & Random Spherical Press


Emerged from the idea of stamping a sand bucket with a potato, the team started the investigation on the effects of various spherical head on sand and clay molding for concrete cast.
A variety of press with different forms and sizes have been made for the experiment meanwhile the generation of the patterns creates the juxtaposition of randomness and order in the mold.
The fabrication was made with help of the KUKA robotic arm for the mold. A prototype concrete cast was therefore made for evaluation.

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Posted in Diana Raquel León Roman, Lok Man Lee, Nasim Fashami, Ranjini Manimudi | Comments closed