VOBJECTS

 I cannot let go of the idea that there is a way to do a sine pattern along a curve using purely Grasshopper and maths. Bryan showed me how to do with quite flexibly with base geometry and arrays and flows in GH and I did use it but I know there must be a way to do it. I just can't seem to get it. This post is supposed to be about my experimental FDM print above where I used Grasshopper to create toolpaths and GCode but as many of my instructors will tell you I can be difficult because I find my own things to focus on. Yeah, that's a cool and fun little experiment and all but I couldn't figure out the thing I wanted to. Even though it had no direct bearing on the end result of the project but I shall not be defeated by inability! This stuff will definitely come in handy for future projects. Writing custom GCode is a hyper valuable tool if you're wanting to really pursue the creative possibilities of digital fabrication.

  As a group we decided to build an arm that would hold several pens to draw at once from the same gecode file. It would allow us to experiment with different pens, pencils and brushes drawing the same image at the same time. Above is Leti's sketch of the early ideas for the arm and the pen holder. This is a sketch from Dallas about how the fillable brush could work. We worked together to come up with some ideas for how it would all attached together and what modifications needed to be made to adapt to different types of tools, such as continuously filled brushes. What I quickly realized was that for something like this rapid prototyping would be very important. I've had experience with "cheese board" mounting plates in my photography career and their versatility seemed quite fitting for this project. I decided that if the arm was made from a metal peg board it metal prototyping could be quick and easy but also the project would be very flexible. 3 pens? 4 pens? 5 pe...

I'm writing this post as I wait for my 3-axis golem to complete my drawing. It has been a process ... I tested on paper with ballpoint pens and felt confident enough to move to cardboard with my oil paint markers. Of course they're only similar in theory, they seem to have nothing in common in practice ... So that was a whole recalibration of z distance etc. They needed much more of a pressure downwards and also a bigger lift. I finally did find a good pressure, and speed, that allowed the ink flow to be continuous and keep up with the drawing. [you'll just have to take my word that I did ballpoint drawings, I only did a timelapse of that process and the ballpoint marks are much to difficult to see.] Update: The paint markers were so satisfying. I want to do more! Luckily, there was no one needing the CNC after my appointment slot so I just kept going and going and going. Adding more layers. That was the benefit of my image generator, with just...

Good Vibrations earrings and keychains So, without really meaning to I got a head start on my mass produced object. I let myself be distracted and went where my motivations took me and I'm actually so happy with how these turned out. These are based on the infamous ███████ █████████ massager  (name redacted for lawsuit protection because these will probably sell by the millions) and I traced the silhouette in Adobe Illustrator which I then imported into Rhino. After a few Rhino tests I ended up make the entire thing in Grasshopper, including all the separate parts. The Grasshopper file as well as the object's design went through many iterations until I was happy with what I got. There is a small hole in the base which a steel eye hook screws into and then the whole piece is hooked onto a sterling silver base fish hook earing. They are so easy to print and I designed them to print so that with an easy colour change in Prusa...

  I guess you could call this a sketch. After discussing with Bryan how I could push these candles holders to a hyper unique and bespoke object, I settled on using people's birthdays and ages. Bryan pointed out though that it wasn't clear how the concept of dates/birthdays existed in the form of the object so we brainstormed ideas of how to make the object almost "readable".  This prototype using dates to build it's final form. In the one above, it is my age. 36 years and 10 months. The larger rings are decades, 3 = 30 and the remainder are years, 6. The vertical lines are the months. Here's a video of the object interpolating through a range of dates.

  Well, I got it working! I did it at home on my own Prusa Mini so I had to do everything from scratch but it's great that I can now do this at home. I'm very excited for the large scale drawings. I also optimized and commented my Grasshopper definition