The milling process has been evaluated with three different ballmills: a 12 mm diameter one to remove material, a 6 mm one diameter to mill the designed shape and a 3 mm ballmill to finish the outputs.

Once the mold was finished we applied 4 coats  of sealer and let it dry. Then we applied a layer of vaseline so that the cement did not stick into the mold. Next step was to pour a mixture of cement, water and additives. The mixture dried for 8 hours. After taking the piece out of the mold, the surface has been cleaned out of the vaseline and the oil has been applied to uniform the finishing.

To be continued… (once we have more tiles) 

Derived from a hyperboloid of 1 sheet, the Hyperblob is a free standing structure made up of 25 2mm fiberglass rods, 33mm long, through two 3D printed rings, 150 mm in diameter. Hyperboloids can be found in architecture and are based on the concept of a ruled surface: through every point on the surface lies a straight line. Hyperblob is an exploration of curvature through the use of straight lines. The structure has a variety of movements, in all of the cartesian coordinates, due to the 3D printed joints.

The Digital Fabrication world has introduced the magic of 3D printing to a variety of audiences. As students, designers, and thinkers it was our task to explore this new technology and create a joint was only possible using this process. Using this criteria we produced a repetative joint that comprised of openings, angled at 20 degrees, as well as a bi-axial interlocking connection mechanism. Constrained by a bounding box of 50x50x100 mm, we printed 26 individual joints that when combined form two seperate rings.  The Hyperblob comes to life when rods pass through each ring allowing the structure to stand, move, and deform depending on the users manipulation.

The final dimensions of the scratch joint were determined by the material’s flexibility as well as the joint’s arm length.  The 3mm wood gave us optimal flexibility to bend pieces and form connections adding strength through tension and compression.  The scratch tower went through many iterations: first, we looked at the geometry of a spiral. Creating a spiral configuration would provide us with maximum strength, but left us with less opportunities to play with the system.  Secondly, we combined a spiral base with an organic flow that formed an unstable tower.  Final build experiments taught us that we could achieve a more stable structure as long as we had a strong base, this allowed us to grow our tower from a ridged base and explore the possibilities of natural form using one component as well as experiment with the tower’s maximum height.

Start from Scratch!