3D Printed Hollow Form

For this project, we created concepts of 3D-printable models that were self supporting. From there, we were partnered off (I got to work with Jason, who's pretty cool) to combine our ideas to make a new hybrid model.

...At first, I misunderstood the assignment and though we had to do 10 concepts and I overdid that too, so I had a total of around 14 concepts. Not all of these would have been ready to 3D print, but most of them would have been functional to do so.

And here was my partner Jason's concepts:

Select three of each of your concepts and evaluate them based on the following criteria: a.) Function - how does this object function? Is is successful in doing so? b.) Form - what are the aesthetic qualities of this object? c.) Self-supporting - is this object self-supporting? Will it print without support material? d.) 3D Printability - Is this 3D model water tight and ready to print? What is its likelihood for success in printing?

Concept evaluation: Becca's (mine)

Function: The one on the left acts mostly as a decorative paperweight more than anything else. The one in the middle is a vase and the one on the right is a tube.

Form: The first piece is very planar, which is easy to work it and will leave smooth sides. The middle model is free flowing with a curve through the whole piece making it appear as if it was a wave or something or the sort. The last model on the right is even. By this, I mean that the tube has perfect perpendicular corners and the tube is pretty uniform as it goes along its path.

Self supporting: The first two don't need support material, but the tube would because it might wobble with the small base it has (not much support at the very bottom)

3D printability: As it stands, the first two would be able to print because the curves aren't overly steep but the tube would need some work to start the base off flat instead of on a point

Concept evaluation: Jason's

Function: all three act as a contemporary vase

Form: The first object (left) is very clean and symmetrical. The middle object is similar in that it appears to have a similar base but the twist gives a very smooth transition that makes the object more interesting. The last object (right) appears to take a more cubist approach with inorganic lines and sharp edges.

Self supporting: each appear to be self supporting and don't require support material

3D printability: As objects that give form vertically, there isn't too steep of curves apparent and all three are likely to succeed if printed

Instead of sketching out our ideas on paper, we decided to made the hybrid models on Rhino, which made it easier to see which concepts had the best support and ability to be 3D printed.

I took the curve from my model and the form of Jason's shape to combine them to form the model on the right

 

For this one, I combined the spiral of Jason's design and took the pentagon base of mine to form a star (because both have 5 sides/points) to form a spiral star, with a flat top resembling the flat top of Jason's design.

Same idea as the one above, except I made it shrink as it went up to resemble my design's point. I also made 5 layers of shrinking stars to resemble the 5 layers it took for me to loft my original pentagonal design.

For this one, I took the volcano like shape of Jason's model and made it taller to match the height of mine (which is shrunk down in this image) and I reduced the number of leg looking attachments to 4 instead of 8 so that they could fit nicely between the base curves of Jason's model.

We took the size and curviness of Jason's design and combined it with the circular gear like shape of my concept. We also made sure that it had a hole in the center like Jason's design to give it more character.

(I will admit, this was Jason's idea that we sketched on paper, but it was supposed to be more round and pumpkin shaped instead of the sharp edge at the top. My idea I sketched on paper was to take Jason's donut shape and combine it with the arm looking things to make a spider donut, but with only 2 arms on either side instead of 4.)

We decided to use the spiral star as our design. It turned out really well and it took a little under an hour, but one thing we could have done was make it bigger because it turned out pretty small in real life. This was an error on my part because I forgot to scale it up.