Project 1: Preparing the Pieces and Beginning Assembly

This is an in-progress photo of attaching the needles to the CDs. I tried poking a hole in the CD to see if I could somehow attach that way, but it became clear that tape was my best bet. The needles were just too thin and it was difficult to bend them all uniformly.



I then decided to paint the backs of the CDs silver. Being able to see the texture of the tape was a concern, but I don't think it's too noticeable in the final version.


I also painted the 3D printed CD holder silver.


Lastly, I worked on the stem of the plant, which I cut out of the fly swatter from the previous post. I bent the bottom into a square-ish base that I hoped would support the CDs. Then I tied the CD holder onto the base to see if the apparatus would stand. Once it was standing, I glued the CD holder and the stem together and left the glue to set.













Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Project 2 Part 2: Preparing Structural Elements

Image
The first part I decided to make was the wooden boards for the dock. I had ordered some wooden dowels of 1 inch diameter for the pilings (the poles) and I wanted to make sure the boards would look like they had the right scale compared to the pilings. To make the boards, I sawed balsa wood on the band saw. Since I wanted the dock to seem somewhat old and weathered, I wasn't too worried about making perfect cuts. Some inconsistent spacing between the boards was also fine, in fact it was better, because real docks warp over time. Looking back, it would've been interesting to add some manual warping to the boards. I also started brainstorming how I could make the figure standing on top of the dock. Since I had ordered some aluminum wire with the intention of using it to make my crab pot,  I tried shaping a figure out of it. Additionally, I drew some sketches of how he should be standing based on reference images of people pulling heavy objects with ropes. You can see that I haven&
Read more

Project 3: Project Statement

Image
 For this project, I wanted to create a sense of surprise in the viewer. I chose to make a robot head that, when approached, quickly whips around to look at the viewer, and has eyes that light up. Since this is an electronics project triggered by human interaction, my goal was to explore the moment when something inanimate becomes animate. The scene I created in my head was one where you are exploring an old abandoned room full of dusty electronics. Suddenly, you see motion out of the corner of your eye and you realize you've awoken something that was asleep for a long time. To build this small project, I used a servo motor and two LEDs. I mounted the head onto the PICO without an enclosing box because I liked the technological aesthetic and the idea that the head was just sitting in a pile of junk, perhaps detached from its body for a long time.  An important aspect of this project was the LED eyes. Since the LEDs needed to be within the head, I needed to solder the connections be
Read more

Project 1: Designing and Printing the CD Holder

Image
The first aspect of the project I focused on was the piece that would hold the CDs at an angle such that they would seem like the leaves of a Venus Fly Trap. I began by sketching out the piece and thinking about its dimensions.  Although I began working in inches because it's what I'm more familiar with, I quickly switched to millimeters at the suggestion of the instructors.  My goal was to print an initial test for the CD holder to see how big it would have to be (because it needs to be suspended in the air) and see how well the CDs would sit in the slot.  At first I designed the slot in the CD holder from above using the sketch tool. It's the same thickness all the way through.  But before printing, Abhishek suggested I model a version of the CD and use that to cut a hole in my holder. This way, the slot would better match the size of the CD, and the bottom of the slot would be rounded so the CD would sit in it without falling. I then sized the piece down as much as I tho
Read more