Travis Fowler: Midterm

For this project, I wanted to explore the implementation and application of procedural patterns made using grasshopper in digital fabrication. Having never made molds, the second thing I wanted to focus on was effectively making molds and castings using advanced mold-making techniques.

I spent a lot of time this summer researching grasshopper and finding tutorials to better help my understanding of grasshopper.

One of the most valuable resources I found was CO-DE-IT, a blog dedicated to the exploration of grasshopper scripts.

I used a code found on co-de-it called hex chaos as the base for my pattern. I spent a lot of time exploring the methods used for seeding random patterns and dividing predefined surfaces.

This is a snapshot of the Hex Chaos code out of grasshopper.

Here are the surfaces I extracted the pattern from to make the round vase and the flat reliefs.

Below is a picture of the relief positive after being covered with a coating of urethane to seal the MDF.

Relief mold

3D printed vase after coatings of XTC-3D (upside down)

I determined that the vase would be a better candidate for the brush-on mold because of its size. (2nd coating of rebound 25)

Third coating of rebound 25 with seam for cutting the mold to free the origional

Making the mother mold for the vase proved to be difficult. I had to make a 2 part mother mold to avoid mother-mold lock. The picture below is of half the mold being covered to allow half the mother mold to be made.

After the first half of the mother mold was done, I placed tape along the edge to prevent the second half from binding to the first half.

I wanted my relief castings to have a base plate that mimicked a honeycomb and the pattern found on the relief castings themselves.

Baseboard Finalized

Extra casting with hardboard mount for individual use

These are the castings I chose to mount on the baseboard

I wanted to explore these Grasshopper and mold making techniques as well as making something functional, the base board and castings are made to be a table centerpiece and the castings can be removed to be used as coasters or hotplates. The vase is used to hold flowers as table a decoration.