The Result of 3D Printing and My Experiences

Over the past week I have spent time 3d printing the object that was created from both me and my partners concepts. Unfortunately, this project has shown how horrible I am as I missed the first day that me and my partner had scheduled to work together, thus upon my arrival on the second day I encountered this:

The object that I had spent time modeling had become a reality (though it seems the printer had trouble printing the edges, most likely due to the edges being so sharp). There was also a note, and now my guilt eats away at my the inner machinations of my mind, but I left an apology drawing, that can be seen above. I talked to my teacher about the model, and apparently he had smoothed out the original model to see if it would print in a cleaner manner, and the more puffed up object seems much cleaner as a print. Despite having the project technically completed, I still have no experience 3d printing, so I decided to attempt to print yet another object.

Booting up the computer was nightmarish, staring at a blank screen for several minutes questioning whether it was properly working or not, but never the less I sat there and waited... quite impatiently actually.

As I was reaching for the off switch after reaching the breaking point caused by the horrendous boot up time, the screen flashed to life.

And thus I was able to star printing a secondary copy of the smoothed out object.

And thus the longer wait had begun, though I will say it was much more entertaining as I watched the model shift from the digital realm into reality layer by layer. 

Unfortunately due to a corruption of my phone camera (CURSE YOU FAULTY SD CAAARRRDDD) I had lost the 4 other photos I had taken of the object as it printed.

About 75% through the print, I decided to stop it as I had ran out of time, and I thought I'd like a larger hole in the top for the new print. I figured it'd work great as a pencil cup.

The final object currently sits on my desk, holding various paint brushes and dip pens.

Overall I'd say it was a fun experience, and though I encountered difficulties (and probably caused some for my partner), the amount of knowledge gained made it worth it. The most difficult parts of the project was waiting for the computer to boot up, and waiting for the print to finish. Seeing the potential of 3d printing has really peaked my interest. Having printed the single object has truly made me want a 3d printer for myself actually. Just thinking about the amount of things I could create with the help of a 3d printer has gotten me quite excited. Though expensive, some of the research I've done brings me a little hope, because building a 3d printer myself should reduce the price by at the very least a significant amount. Perhaps my teacher would be willing to help me build a RepRap (apparently a project that has to do with the creation of a self replicating 3d printer), or at the very least point me in the right direction.

3D Print Combined Concepts

Today I started working with an assigned partner to create some even better concepts for the 3D printing project. The idea was to combine some of our concepts to create a hybrid that is both more appealing and interesting.

To start the project I took one of my more appealing concepts, along with some of her ideas to try and create a brand new concept from scratch. Though a key aspect was trying to retain ideas from both of the original models.

The model from me is this one:

 And one of the models that she showed me included this one:

I payed more attention the the star pattern at the top that she used, and I tried to maintain the rotation from my model. I scrapped the triangle base from mine all together, while also scrapping the gradual size change in m partners model. I wanted to make it more akin to a pencil holder perhaps, so I wanted to make sure the space in the middle wouldn't be bottle necked.

The result from various brainstorming and concept generation was this:

Some of the models seemed too sharp to 3D print properly, so we narrowed it down to the few models that have a chance of being 3D printed without too many problems.

We narrowed it down to three different models that we like more than the others.

Personally, I'm a big fan of the first two, but I still think the third one has the highest chance of success. The first one contains the the repeated size and a little bit of the twist from my model, while containing the star shape and the rotations from my partners model. The second model retains the rotation from my partners model, but also contains a more extreme twist as seen in my small triangle pillar. The last one leans more toward my partners original model, but it also still has some of the aspects from my triangular pillar, such as the repeated constant sized star (being in place of a triangle).

My Partner has a blog as well, and it can be viewed here (this is where I obtained the image of my partners 3D model): Partner!

So far I'd say this project is going by quite smoothly, I'm excited to see what my partner will make too.

Beginning the 3D Printing Project!

Today I was tasked with creating 10 concepts that could possibly be used to create a 3D printed object with no support material. Here are the objects that I had created.

I'd say this assignment was quite fun, though It does leave me somewhat anxious about whether any of these could possibly be 3D printed. Currently I don't know too much about the process so I am unsure if any of these would translate very well, but with any luck, these concepts may be refined with a small amount of effort to make the process work. One thing that I did notice was that the process went by quite smoothly as I was able to navigate the program Rhinoceros with ease, making the process go by a lot quicker.

The Final Version of the Paper Craft Character Stand

After some refinement and work, the character stand has been completed. Printed in color, and covered in clear vinyl for a super official look.

Here are all renditions of the stand from the first two prototypes to the final. As you can see I have created a polymer clay  figure, but there is also a small 2D character that can be printed out.

The stand is reversible, as it can be flipped over for a different color scheme. The top features a blue sky with some clouds, while the bottom displays a dream-like pink sky with purple clouds.

I have created a final template, that includes the little colored 2D character. 

Overall I'd say that the project was fun. I enjoyed the process, and I feel like it went by quite smoothly, as I did encounter that many struggles during the process. If anything the only struggles came from just taking the time to make corrections that I wanted, such as completely changing the first prototypes shape. Aside from fixing little things that I just happened to dislike, the only other struggle was finding a proper adhesive that would hold everything together properly, but in the end I found something that would suffice. Truthfully the process was simple, I wanted something, so I made it, then I found things that I didn't like and fixed them. In the end I am satisfied and super happy with what I have.

Character Stand Improvement

The stand I made in the last post has been redesigned completely, and I believe that it has improved to a great extent. Unfortunately, due to a printing mishap, I have only been able to make yet another prototype, so this project is still far from the final.

 As you can see, the template is now covered in various graphics. Sadly it is in black and white, so I have chose not to cover it in vinyl.

 Now it is cut out.

 Time to close up the final fold.

 Behold! The completed character pedestal!

It can even be flipped upside down.

After finishing this prototype, I think I've learned enough to make the final version something super refined. I'm excited to see how nice a colored version would look in vinyl. I don't think I struggled too badly, as I have learned from my previous mistakes and have used something better than  glue stick. This time the adhesive of my choice was regular school white glue... So maybe not a large step up from a glue stick, but it was enough of an upgrade that I can toss the paper craft around without worrying about it exploding. If there were any struggles for this project, it was staying steady and still while cutting the paper trying to hold in my excitement. Also another struggle was finding a proper tool to score the paper was somewhat of a struggle, but luckily my teacher gave me a large paperclip so that struggle was easily alleviated. Overall, I'd say I'm ready to make a final version.

BONUS:

The little figures I wanted are now in the making, but they aren't ready yet, so here's a quick... thing as a place holder. I call him "GnUURrRT" because that's the sound I'd imagine this thing making.

Character Stand

So after a lengthy process I now have the physical 3D form of an object that I had created in Rhinoceros and Adobe Illustrator. Though it is only a simple paper craft, I find that it is still cool to have.

 To be completely honest, I just wanted to make a pedestal for potential 3D figures of characters that I make.

Here is a mock-up with a small pop up card I made.

Overall, I'd say that the creation of the pedestal wasn't that complicated of a process, but it was still fun. I will say that my choice of glue, that being a simple glue stick, was a terrible idea. So I eventually resorted to using tape to try and strengthen the glue.  At its current state I believe that the pedestal is held together by faith... Yep, it's on the verge of unfolding into a clobbered mess. I am not completely satisfied with the final result so I think I'll be redesigning the pedestal to make it more complicated. Also If I make another one it's definitely going to have a different type of glue be used, because glue sticks are not good for more rigid papers.

Until next time, have a good one!

3D to 2D and Back

This week I was tasked with the challenge of creating three dimensional  objects that can be unfolded into flat nets of the original shapes using the program Rhinoceros. The 10 objects I created can be seen below.

First I started off small with a simple square.

The assignment wasn't necessarily tough. I think it was a little on the tedious side, and because of that, I'd say my main struggle was remembering all the specific tools that I could have used. Overall I'd say I learned a lot, and this became very prominent towards the end of the project where my workflow had increased dramatically as I got more used to working in Rhinoceros.