Chameleon Tile

Сlick to see the process!

Our inspiration is simple, since we are in the city of Gaudi, we chose one famous work of Gaudi in Parc Guell : the Chameleon.
And because of the shape of the tile we are going to make is in hexagon,
we tried to achieve a design that comprised of continuous lines and shape, for the tile to be able to rotate to connect with another around.

The design process started with mirroring, rotating, and tracing the above picture to create a circle-like, head to tail, chameleons badge.
Then we used a plug-in called “pointreconstruction” in Rhino to give the triangular texture throughout the design.
The plug-in easily grasped the corners and edge of the Chameleon and create “Delaunay” out of it.
(The process of altering the height of each vertices is very manual and we hope we had more time to study the easier way of doing this)
Anyways, we finished off the design by connecting those water channels in the mold with our branches behind our stars.

The RhinoCam process finally finished .
Then came the job of the milling machine. The mold was done with foam block and consumed about half and hour time each.
We brushed the inside of the mold with thin layer of vaseline. Mixed the concrete. Poured it into the mold.
Shake. Get rid of the bubbles.
Waited for 8 hours to dry (very depending on the temperature and the weather)
Gently twisted the mold and the tile came off easily.
All these processes were very time consuming and we need to work well as a team.
The milling machine also needs a very precise and correct type of strategy.
We also learnt that the concrete work is not easy.
It turned out to be a very delicate work compare to the work on computer.

The aim of this exercise was to create a kinetic structure with rotational movement with minimal number of 3d printed joints. It is a free standing structure made up of 20 2mm fiberglass rods, through two 3D printed perforated rings of dia..
The form resembles a conical cylinder which when rotated at different angles form different shapes. The form can also be on par with a whirling dervish which dances and rotates to is own tunes so as the structure which rotates, twists and turns to its capabilities.it is a portable structure and facilitates movement in x and y direction independent of the board it is fixed to. The bending properties of the fiber rod is utilized to the maximum resulting in various twists and turns.it is fixed to the board by laser cutting the board in the shape of the perforated ring.

The 3d printed ring has holes on the top in the shape of a flower and also holes on the sides at 30/60 degree which facilitates the angular twists and movements. The entire structure is centrally supported by vertical rods which helps the form to collapse. The end result of collapsing/bending is a floral pattern symbolizing a flower. The structure can be pushed and twisted to the extreme resulting in various complex shapes. The structure works of the simple mechanism of pushing and twisting.

http://youtu.be/V3mn_wL5ndY

Triagon is a combination of triangles and a penthagons coexisting in the same structure.

The goal of this first Digital Fabrication project was to build a tower out of 4 board of 3mm plywood while exploring the properties of the material and to acquaint ourselves with laser cutting.

The Triagon stands 2.7m tall. The structure is made out of a single 180° twisted plywood elements which works in tension along with the joints to form an equilateral triangle which is the basic unit of the tower.

Remita Thomas /Rodion Eremeev / Alejandro Martínez del Campo

We began with triangles as the basic geometry of our structure because of its stability. After inicial testings of the possible joinery with cartboard and plywood we realized that a combination of circles and rods would be the most efficient design for our conections.

Later on we wanted to play with the properties of the material, so we started bending and twisting the rod, which generates stress on the joints and makes the basic unit more robust. In order to twist the rods 180°  we had to use another technique which involved wetting the plywood so that it became more elastic and cuting inside the rod a dentate form with circular ends to prevent breakage. We also found out that rods needed to be cut in the same directions of the fibers so that the twisting could be achieved.

To minimize the waste of the material and the cutting time we used just 2 elements in the whole structure, one was the 30cm rod itself and the other was the circular conections which we also used for attaching the tower to the base.