Module 3-FabricationRonald Wong610134Virtual Environments Semester 1/2013Group 8

RecapBack in Module One, we were assigned to create analytical drawings based on a natural occuring pattern. I choose the pattern found in Kiwi fruits and made recipes of my analytical drawing. During that time, I did not really understand the purpose of doing these things and could not see how it would help de-sign my lantern.

In Module Two, I created three types of panels based on the ideas be-hind my emerging form. All the lighting effects of the panels turned out good, especially the ones that produced wavy light effects. I almost de-cided to throw away the idea of third panel that did not produce much lighting effects from my design. However, my tutor encouraged me to include them into my final form.

So in Module Three, the main challenge was to combine the idea of three of the panes into my final form. The thinking prosess was long and hard because I had no idea of how the three panels would come to-gether.

+ + =

Iwamoto’s artice on design fabrication gave me an idea of how I would combine the three panels. In the article, Peter Macapia of labDORA mentioned the idea of seeing architecture as a ‘function’. In order words to create something using a “machine” or rules that I have created for myself. So, I went back to the most basic form of where my ideas came from —the Kiwi Fruit.

The Kiwi fruit has the shape of the ellipsoid. This egg-shaped form would be the overall form of my final lantern. Then, I applied the recipes that I have created onto the ellipsoid.

The analytical drawing that I have created can be seen on the TOP and the SIDES of the Kiwi. Then, i ap-plied the recipes of BALANCE, SYMMETRY and MOVEMENT.

BalanceDivide the into 4 equal sections.

I divided the ellipsoid to 4 sections. Each sec-tion will host a type of panel.

SymmetryLines of symmetry divide the space into multiple sections.

MovementRevolving petals around an eliptical shape. Overall Form

The recipes acted as functions to pro-duce my final form. The surfaces that are split will host the three different panels.

The final form of my lantern is divided into 5 parts, the cap and 4 equal parts below.

The CrownThe cap or the part that sits on top is called The Crown. It utilis-es the ideas of Symmetry, Movement, the Emerging Form and one of the three panels.

Movement and Symmetry Emerging form Panels

Wavy forms follow the recipe of movement and revolves around in a circle. The Crown is panelled triangulary such as the panel above. The holes and lines will be drawn on them manually after the panels are unrolled.

The BodyThe main body will be divided into 4 parts ver-tically. Two opposite parts will host the same panels.

PrecedentsThe ‘Golden Moon’ by Kristof Crolla and Adam Fingurt gave me the idea to position my ‘spikes’ upwards rather than horizontally like what I did in the previous module. This gives it a rather grand and majestic look that I want to imply onto my lantern. Also, they positioned the lights in the middle of their lantern to allow for maximum exposure and minimal budgeting. I took note of this and will follow in their footsteps in wiring the LEDs to my lantern.

Final FormDrawing ideas from the precedent and things that I have learned throughout the semester, my final form is born.

Prototype- The CrownUnlike the panels on the Body which I had prototyped in Module 3, the Crown was something new to me and I de-cided to make a partial prototype of it to test its strengths and weaknesses. Prototyping it was important in order to prevent errors that might occur with fabricating the final model.

MIddle east

North West North East

North South East

South West South

West

Nesting in Rhino to be cut.

Fabrication of PrototypesTwo prototypes of the Crown were nested and cut. The two prototypes explored different holes on different cards, black and white.

Black & WhiteThe holes on the black card card cut into triangle shapes whereas the white card has V-Shaped panels.

Even though both produced very nice lighting effects, but struc-turally they had problems. Firstly, the 250gsm white card had smaller holes, making them very hard to fold. Also, the white card was thicker, further causing folding to be troublesome. Much force was needed to fold the panels and I accidentally tore some of the pieces because I used too much force. (bear in mind that the Crown is very small therefore it was hard to con-trol my force). As for the 200gsm black card, it was easier to fold but the large holes made the structure too fragile. While folding the black card, it was too easy to fold and miss the score line, causing it to have unnessarry wrinkles. Therefore I concluded that the black and the white card had to swap panels as the bigger triangle holes would make folding easier on the white card and smaller holes will avoid wrinkles on the black card.

the white card was accidentally torn due to excession force

A SkeletonLearning from the prototype I made in module 2, I realized that my panels needed a structure to hold on to. It needed a skeleton to support its overall strucuture because the unconnected na-ture of my panels. Therefore, I sturctured a frame for it in Rhino.

Some parts of the frame showed weakness when I applied downward pressure onto it. Drawing from what I had learned from Construct-ing Environments, I made trusses to support prevent bending due to torsion.

Trusses to support the frame.

Fabrication of Final FormWith the knowledge of the prototypes in hand, I proceeded to fabricating my final form.

The Body was an-notated and nested properly into 900x600 rectangle to be cut.

Design Before printing, random designs were drawn in black cut lines onto the surface of the empty panels. In the last module, I manually cut out the designs with my penknife and discovered that the strips I made were too small for light to pass through. So this time I decided to use Rhino to draw the designs.

Assembly

Assembling the Crown

Putting together the Body

LightingThe lantern is powered by 3 LED strips connected in paralled. I soldered the circuit con-sisting of the battery, LED strips, switch and wires. The circuit is positioned vertically inside the frame of the lantern.

The Final Form

Lighting EffectThe main focus of this semester’s task is to generate a unique lighting effect. I believe my lantern has created a very bizzare lighting effect. The overlapping of the wavy pat-terns luminates a dark room in an extraordinary way.

ReflectionThe process of making my final model was really crazy and tiring, Module three to me is the climax of the Virtual Environments subject. Almost every ounce of knowledge and energy was put into creating the final form. But with my knowledge alone I could not have created the model. The biggest help I got was from Iwamoto’s article. As mentioned before, Peter Macapia saw the designing process as a ‘function’. What this means to me is creating something based on the rules that one has created for himself. These ‘rules’ are the recipes found in Module One. The recipes can be repeated and reused to create different abstractions.

Another thing that I have learned from Rhino is to not let technology restric us. In the readings, it stated that soft-wares were invented to AID and HELP people design. Because of our lack of knowledge on the Rhinoceros soft-ware, we tend to simplify or downgrade our ideas and designs. However, it is also important to be aware that the machine we are using to cut our models have limits. We must understand those limitations and design within the capability of the machine. As stated in the readings, designs should marry the capabilities of the machine.