WEEK #7

This week I tried to connect my previous week thoughts about noise with an object I really like, a surfboard.

These days, surfboard's cores is made of foam, either polystyrene or polyurethane.

These materials are light, very easy to shape, easy to cover with resin and fiber glass.

But in my opinion we can make surfboard's cores stronger, more aesthetic, and easier to build using new materials and techniques. I previously tried that with cardboard but even though I'm really happy with the aesthetic and the strength, a small problem remains. If the resin/ fiber glass overlay get a ding and the water goes inside, it takes a long time to dry the cardboard completely before fixing the hole.

In order to get rid of this problem I thought about using a hydrophobic material. The idea of 3d printing came to my mind. We can use strong filaments and maybe as sustainable as cardboard.
I then had to find a technique to fill a volume in a light and strong way, that's how I connected my idea with noise. Using noise we can randomly fill a volume with matter, we then have to interconnect these dots. If we think about it looks like random interconnected polygon cells. This is "Voronoi" tesselation.

Also this kind of technique allows to make a holed core. In my opinion "transparent" surfboard are beautiful.

From there I tried to generate Voronoi tessellation on a volume. It looked good.

Then I learned how to make a proper 3d Surfboard model on Rhino. (Now I can also use a CNC machine to shape polystyrene as my model).

Then came the most complicated part. I had to create this tessellation on my model. I followed a bunch of grasshopper tutorials and after around a week of trying different techniques, I succeeded !

The idea is to 3d print a small size prototype.

Later, because most of 3d printers are too small to make a full size board I thought about adapting my model to make a modular surfboard which can be perfect for traveling !

WEEK #6

This week I wanted to experience with generative design but I didn't use the easiest way.

I tried something without knowing where I was going.

1/ I generated a fractal noise map on After Effects, I exported it as a picture.
 

2/ Then I imported this noise map into photoshop (where I initially drew a simple grid). I applied displacement map effect from the noise map to the grid. The picture bellow is the result.
On the first attempt, the black and white colors were crushed. So at the position where the black and white colors were crushing the curve of the gris isn't smooth.

On the second attempt, I used a level effect to control the range of the luminance in order to limit crushed colors. So the curves of the grid are smooth.

3/ I then vectorized the photoshop file into illustrator.

4/ I imported this path into Rhino, in order to project it on a ball to get slices of this ball.

5/ Here is the sliced ball. On the bottom right hand corner you can see the different slices of the ball. I added the hole in the middle of the ball to make the assembeling part easier.

6/ I exported all the paths of the slices into Illustrator and then to the laser cutter.  

I doesn't look like what I expected but I've learnt.

For next week, I want to understand how to make Voronoi tessellation inside a 3D shape.

WEEK #5

This week it doesn't look like I worked a lot on my ideas but in fact in order to succeed at making my ideas real and acquire a great tool for my future I need to learn how to 3d model. That's why this week I mainly followed a lot of tutorials. I'm still not confident enough, I need to learn more.

These days I want to focus my work on finding and making ways of building volumes as well as understanding established concepts.

I thought about exploring :

• Honey comb
• Isogrid
• Noise

Noise can be use to add randomization to get a more organic shape but this noise pattern need to be controlled in order to get the best mechanical properties for this one shape. I need to be careful about the strength points of my shape.






After following some basics tutorials, I followed a tutorial to learn how to make an iPhone X. It's not very original but I've learned a lot. Still I need to practice more. Next time I want to learn more about making smooth asymmetrical designs without uniform shapes.

WEEK #4

I wanted to try out some "mechanism engineering" using last week servo motor experience. I thought about the mechanism of a engine's piston. Unintentionally I made it more complicated by creating 2 symmetrical 2d piston and using the 2 opposite branches of the servo. 

I had to simulate the movement of this mechanism in my mind and then on the paper to think about a design and then calculate all of the moving parts' dimensions in order to make it work properly.

After some sketches, I drew this mechanism on Illustrator in order to get vectors that I can laser cut.

Once the cutting was done, I assembled everything, powered the servo and controlled it with the Arduino program from last week. 

I should have put some margins on the moving parts because sometimes the mechanism doesn't work very well, the paperclip arm can't go far enough to follow the rotation of the servo.

WEEK #3

Last week I had to rethink my ideas for the project as it wasn't enough about prototyping an "object". I wanted to connect the breath of a human to something virtual. David recommended me to link the human breath to an object. This object could be a "breathing shape", a mechanical iris for example.
I thought that's a good idea but it's a bit far from my metaphor. Though, I'll try that, that'll introduce me to some new interesting techniques.

As the project evolve, I would like to reconnect with my main theme connecting human sense to machine.

Through this project I'll focus on learning a bit of Arduino, Gear Engineering, Laser Cutting, 3D modelling.



1/ Basic Arduino

The goal is to control the aperture of a mechanical iris using a servo and Arduino.

As I don't have any experience with Arduino, I tried to understand how we mount electronic components on it and how this works. I also tried to understand a code displaying values of a potentiometer.

Then I tried a code controlling a servo through the mouse using also Processing. I tried to modify the code to understand it better.

My final goal was to use Touchdesigner instead of Processing to interact with arduino, but I didn't succeed for the moment.


2/ Gear Engineering

Inspiration :