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.

The basic concept behind the whole design was to have dynamism in a vertical design by using one single element, and the possibility of this element to either move in the vertical axis so as to either merge the vertical rods inwards or expand them outwards or rotate the element in horizontal axis creating a spire effect in the vertical rods.

The Structure consists of two basic joints 3-D printed. One of which is a spherical egg shaped joint which is made by joining two hemispherical pieces together. The hemispherical pieces have ten holes in each piece which allow the vertical rods to go through making it possible to move this joint in the vertical axis, both the hemispherical joints get locked into each other providing the rotational flexibility in the horizontal axis.

There are five more identical joints which tie two vertical rods together under the spherical joint, the main function of these joints is to make the joints rigid or flexible near the base, which can be done by moving these pieces in the vertical axis. The closer they are to the base, greater rigidity the vertical rods have in the base, as you move these pieces farther away from the base, the vertical rods become more flexible near the base. this causes the vertical robs to either concave in or convex out near the base.

We were able to achieve a composition which is vertical in nature, but which can be able to change its geometry ( Straight vertical members or Spiral), height and radius.

Stage 1 & 2

GroupTEN approached brief of the 3D printing excersize with a vision to create a kinetic, 3-Dimensional form, exploiting all of the properties of the given materials. This was no doubt the approach taken by all other groups. So what made us different?

We did not look at creating a structure, or a string of points. We instead looked at creating a malleable surface. A moving geometry which would flow and adapt based on the applied forces.
Post Research & Design stage, we moved into understanding the techniques involved in 3D printing. A Rhino file was simple enough to draw, with numerous joints developed – each designed to test minimum tolerances of the printing material, both in terms of breaking and connecting to the plastic rods.

Sadly time ran short for our project, and our test pieces were not able to be printed.

Alas, we were able to print our pieces and explored the various assembly approaches available to us. Having a very simple and adaptable piece of geometry repeated many times allowed us to experiment with the form until we were happy.

This experimentation began with a single spine, from which all rods would meet at a perpendicular angle, and spin around. This created a form which was random and chaotic. Although the printed pieces were designed to limit the movement of each one next to it to 10°, the tolerance of the machine rendered this feature useless.

To overcome this problem, we decided to create the desired flowing surface by stringing the rods between two spines. This was successful, and provided us with a malleable, flowing surface, whose stiffness maintained its shape and form, but small movement through multiple pieces had the residual of a graceful form.

Connecting to the board was initially intended to be the standard “screw a hole” technique, employed by many. However, after exhausting our supplies of plastic rods, we decided to use our few remaining joints to create the connection to the board. Yes, it does use glue.

The flexible, malleable, adaptable surface  was created by something never designed to act as a surface. The possibility of 3D printing has allowed us to join the given material – plastic rods – into a graceful sculpture.