Emily Rowland's Assignment 6!

Continuing my lamp from last week, I realized I forgot to share the inspiration photos!



Revisiting my sketch from last week... I wanted something similar with hexagons.



I finished modeling my flat hexagons using Grasshopper to vary sizes and then cutting an lamp ring width slot from them in Rhino. And upon realization for how big and flat they were, I decided laser cutting was the quicker approach here than many hours of prints for the hexagons.





After cutting my hexagons... I realized that I could also test laser cut my ring. I decided to modify the ring a bit to include more slots just in case. I tested many different sizes to see which precise fit worked for my lamp, which was between 18-18.5 mm inner ring radius. This was easier to modify because I used Grasshopper, I could vary the slots and sizes.







I then test assembled my lamp and it fit together! But, it was more exposed than I was hoping, it likely would've been smarter not to try to spiral or cut thicker pieces. Unforntunately, there were many other students waiting for the laser cutter so I decided to just go with it.





Then, I went back home to print the 18 and 18.5 mm radius rings. I reassembled my lamp and here's the final result!





This technically fit the requirements.. but I still wasn't satisfied with the lamp. Jessica gave a great idea of building an inner shade. I messed around with paraboloids myself and got frustrated. So, I went to Thingiverse and found a shade that would work!



I modified/scaled the mesh so the hole diameter was correct for my lamp innerds. I wasn't able to finish the print in time since I moved onto working on my mold for mold.



But hey... I have some sort of dystopian minimalist chic lamp for now??

Now for MOLD for MOLDS!

Since the first week of lecture, I decided on a Pokemon project theme and every week I've been making sure I'm learning the skills for this vision. Naturally, I am going to mold Pokeballs. Gotta catch em all!

I found a pokeball stl from Thingiverse and reduced the mesh down so it would be more managable.



I was deciding on what the optimal way to cut the pokeball in half was. Along the indentation in the ball might be nice to hide the seam, but I was worried then the lip wouldn't fill out correctly since it was so small even if I put in extra vents. So, I decided to cut it the opposite direction and live with a potential seam with the sprue coming out of the front button of the pokeball.



Jessica reminded me of Nadya's point in class that it can be hard to get the molds out and to build the walls separately, so that is what I did. I decided to start with a small scale test to see if my tolerances, measurements, and meshes were okay upon printing in a shorter amount of time. I printed a very small 4cm version of my pokeball mold.







Unfortunately, even after sealing it looks like the Nebula PLA was getting too brittle, so I switched for green PLA at the larger scale. I scaled up my STL in Cura by 250%, which would me I would fit a pokeball about the size of my hand.



Luckily, right before I kicked off my 14 hour print, Noelle posted about her settings that printed faster. I changed my layer height to 0.4mm, which cut down the print time by about 4 hours!

Next was printing the big mold! Unfortunately, idk how but the PLA kept getting wrapped on itself... I think it must've been spooled wrong at the factory or something.



So I babysat my print and every 20 min ensured there were no tangles in the PLA. Anyways... there was a small adhesion issue in the front left corner that I missed with glue, but overall will not effect the mold.



Here is my final mold:



Since the pokeball is symmetrical I am going to oomoo this mold twice since it takes just as long to print another one and oomoo I don't have to babysit :).

Acknowledgements:

Peer teachers: Jessica Douma for helping with lamp ideas and detachable walls and Noelle for quicker print settings.

Moral support: Jessica Douma, Miranda, Andy

Teaching support: TA Junchao

Again the link to all documents if not wanting to scroll up :P [Includes Rhino, GH, STLs] : Emily's 533 Github Assignment 6 Files