The exercise aims  to understand the various aspects of milling machine, the ability for it to make an architectural detail and to understand its constraints on design.  Focusing on the use of milling tools in order to get specific forms, the exercise was to design a hexagonal tile of size that would be tangential to the points given so as to create a seamless repetition of patterned designs thus the pattern should allow rain water to flow seamlessly in order for it to make its way out of the pattern.

Design:

The concept and the goal of the pattern is to create a seamless flow on organizing curvilinear lines, this is achieved  by the use of different levels of curvilinear pattern linked to each other, it is derived and inspired from a series of abstract patterns that were extracted to study water flow thus from diverse animal patterns seen on different kinds of animals and organisms. This pattern works as rainwater collector diverting excess water to a specific area when interconnected for the reason that each lines are levelled up to bottom, sloped gradient from higher centre of tile to the lower edges. Coming from the middle point of the tile, when channelled to each other it creates a slide through and through, so that water are collected into a specific area. The extruded lines also creates a rough surface that has the capability to trap dirt, for safety reason the pattern is designed as a non slip surface.

Process:

The process initiated various curvy linear lines within the hexagon and whereby understanding the flow patterns, further this lines arranged at different levels to get a clear idea of water flow, then with the help of 3d modelling various curves were examined and its flow were studied. This patterns were tested with the help of CAD-CAM stimulation and milling tools, giving a clear idea of actual formations. Hence a final prototype was derived through it and milling G-Code were exported. This G-codes were feuded in milling machine. The milling was done on 50mm Thick Styrofoam. Through intensive milling, a foam mould for casting tiles was produced. In order to cast a concrete tile the mould surface was finished with Vaseline so that the concrete won’t stick to the mould and multiple tiles can be produced through single mould. Further it was poured with concrete and dried for 12 hours. The tile was taken out from the mould and settled for another 12 hour in order that it is completely dried out. The process was repeated and multiple tiles were casted. The Vaseline on tiles was cleaned through water and finally tiles were dried and polished.

Renderings:

The thought was to overcome the limitations of the milling machine and the concrete hence present a tile that would appear to be visually soft and contrast to both the nature of the material and the machine.

To achieve our goal we focused on two main aspects the first being the use of shadows to make the material more vivid and the second designing to maintain the values which we are able to mill using the machine.

Hence the idea of forming a regular pattern was ruled out and the approach was to simulate the nature of the woolen fiber. 

In order to achieve the desired simulation an image of the wool was inserted into Rhino, Grasshopper and Photoshop. Various permutations and combinations were done to provide the dramatic effect we wanted to create.

We then used this as the basis for our design in Rhinocam where various strategies (curve machining, parallel finishing) were tried.

In order to take take advantage of the milling machine only points at different levels were given the shape formed as a resulted generated purely by the machine itself.  The final strategy with the tool of ball mill 12 used were horizontal roughening, hole pocketing and engraving.

The mold was then cleaned made non porous using epoxy. Vaseline was then added in order to prevent the concrete from sticking to the mold. The mold was then again experimented on with by trying to changing it’s the nature using the Vaseline.

The exercise aims  to understand the various aspects of milling machine, the ability for it to make an architectural detail and to understand its constraints on design.  Focusing on the use of milling tools in order to get specific forms, the exercise was to design a hexagonal tile of size that would be tangential to the points given so as to create a seamless repetition of patterned designs thus the pattern should allow rain water to flow seamlessly in order for it to make its way out of the pattern.

Design:

The concept and the goal of the pattern is to create a seamless flow on organizing curvilinear lines, this is achieved  by the use of different levels of curvilinear pattern linked to each other, it is derived and inspired from a series of abstract patterns that were extracted to study water flow thus from diverse animal patterns seen on different kinds of animals and organisms. This pattern works as rainwater collector diverting excess water to a specific area when interconnected for the reason that each lines are levelled up to bottom, sloped gradient from higher centre of tile to the lower edges. Coming from the middle point of the tile, when channelled to each other it creates a slide through and through, so that water are collected into a specific area. The extruded lines also creates a rough surface that has the capability to trap dirt, for safety reason the pattern is designed as a non slip surface.

Process:

The process initiated various curvy linear lines within the hexagon and whereby understanding the flow patterns, further this lines arranged at different levels to get a clear idea of water flow, then with the help of 3d modelling various curves were examined and its flow were studied. This patterns were tested with the help of CAD-CAM stimulation and milling tools, giving a clear idea of actual formations. Hence a final prototype was derived through it and milling G-Code were exported. This G-codes were feuded in milling machine. The milling was done on 50mm Thick Styrofoam. Through intensive milling, a foam mould for casting tiles was produced. In order to cast a concrete tile the mould surface was finished with Vaseline so that the concrete won’t stick to the mould and multiple tiles can be produced through single mould. Further it was poured with concrete and dried for 12 hours. The tile was taken out from the mould and settled for another 12 hour in order that it is completely dried out. The process was repeated and multiple tiles were casted. The Vaseline on tiles was cleaned through water and finally tiles were dried and polished.

The design idea used to create the tile was a method of force fields. In creating this seamless pattern multiple spin forces were merged together and the effect of field lines was extended for better visualization and incorporation into the water evacuation system.

Force fields working with a different set of constraining circles.

Every line of the system is represented as an “escaping” curve. Each point tries to get away from the force field quickly, leaving those paths behind and creating the data tree structure. By playing with parameters like length, force, radius, distance in between, we could create a controlled distortion according to these field lines and force center.

Water evacuation tangencies meet force fields

The tile is divided into 3 parts according to the water evacuation points on the external edges: 2, 3 and 4. The force fields were placed accordingly on splines starting from these points of reference.

Overall composition of 6 tiles

The slope of the tile decreases gradually outwards following the rhythm of the water canals and pattern, enhancing the water evacuation.

The reference for the picture and original grasshopper script is: http://www.designcoding.net/force-fields-revisited/

Our edited grasshopper definition

To discover our milling strategy we experimented repeatedly with RhinoCam. In the end, for our design, we selected the 12 mm ballmill as it gave us the optimal finish and kept our machining time within the 2 hour limit. We first ran a horizontal roughing to carve the canals then curve machining to overlay the thin contour lines. In the end we didn’t do a perimiter engraving in order to allow for continuity of the lines over the edge and side of the tiles.

RhinoCam simulation strategy

]]> http://legacy.iaacblog.com/maa2013-2014-digital-fabrication/2013/12/reinforced/feed/ 0 http://legacy.iaacblog.com/maa2013-2014-digital-fabrication/2013/12/topography-faces/ http://legacy.iaacblog.com/maa2013-2014-digital-fabrication/2013/12/topography-faces/#comments Tue, 03 Dec 2013 22:03:11 +0000 Ricardo Perez Borbolla http://legacy.iaacblog.com/maa2013-2014-digital-fabrication/?p=1705

As the purpose of the exercise was to create tile pieces to cover the school’s patio floor, we decide to create an image concept to represent what we think is the essence of the school and the advance architecture at Iaac: The students.

That’s why we decide to create “Topography Faces”, a trilateral symmetry design that represent thinkers of the new architecture.

With 3 diferentes face designs in 3 different corners of the tile, the design becomes a complex pattern formed by the rotation of the title to match with the next face and finally forming a topographical surface for water flow.

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) 

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 Lotus Flower it’s a kinetic and dynamic structure.

The goal of the exercise was to producing 3d printed pieces and explore the design opportunities arising from the potential and limitations of the technology to create a dynamic assembly with 2mm diameter rods linked together by 3d printed pieces.

Our idea was to design just one joint. This joint should had the capabilities of generate through the connections between themselves and with the help of the elastic nature of the tubes in order to form two geometrical moments, one that’s goes up and another one than goes to the sides.

The dynamic nature of the joint allows a level of movement between the rods themselves in a translation system by moving the rods in to a circle to move within itself and transfigure into a bigger or smaller structure.

Digital Fabrication – Exercise 3D Printing

Group 22: Gökhan Çatıkkaş, Juhi Patel, Sebastian Alvarado

The project consists of simple joints and their response to the stored energy inside the rods. Playful. The rods stay in form with the already stored energy and if you touch and release the energy it “explodes”.

The explosion does not make the installation irregular, but it makes it back to its ordinary geometric form. This explosion does not mean destruction and irregularity, it brings silence and order to the geometry.

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