Clement Lee ATCM 3355: Christmas Present

  

Christmas Present: Sliding toy  

Concept

This Christmas, I am going to be 3D printing a lot of items. I remember from my childhood, a toy that was a magnetic tileset that could be used to assemble 3-dimensional objects. So far, I have built the unit tile, which can self interlock and tile the plane indefinitely. 

This post might be continuously updated and will include future endeavors and ambitions that I may not get the time to do. 

Process

I wanted to make the original tile with the following constraints:

1) The tile must be symmetric along with the global X, Y, and Z axis, and must be printed along one of the orthogonal axes. This is so that the layer lines provide a clean look and should not be printed at an angle. 

2) The tile must not require any support material whatsoever excluding the raft. This is to mitigate as much post processing. Many design changes were made that were not favorable in order to satisfy this constraint. Overhangs were beveled to have 45 degree angles just to meet this requirement. 

3) The tile must use a joining mechanism similar to the dovetail joint, so that pulling will not break the connection. Offsets must be used to compensate for nozzle thickness, keeping a tolerance in check. 

4) The tile must be printable at reasonable scales, like 1.5x through 4x. 

UPDATE: The unit tile was made in a week after 6 revisions, but afterwards I decided to add to the collection with curved tiles, nonsquare tiles, and unorthodox tiles. I have plans on releasing some as sets or as puzzles. 

Materials & Assembly

The design is intended for manufacturing with a 3D printer, and I prefer using PLA plastic. With the help of my local makerspace, I was able to get the prints in for free and I am honestly grateful for the supply of filament and the support I have gotten. 

Conclusion

Once the tiles were printed, it was easy to assemble, and I found many uses that were unexpected. Printing tiles in multiple colors, you can make images by combining it. The joinery was a little loose so shaking a structure made by such would create an interesting rainy noise. To make this 3D, I added edge and corner tiles that only follow some of the constraints. 

This class was very fun and I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

Nash DeGroat Project 2 - LED Sleeve

 Concept:

    The sleeve was designed with older flashlight bodies in mind. To work with this I wanted the handle to have the visual texture of old military flashlights.

Proccess:

    I was still learning rhino durring this project so I strugled with making the dome head. The pipes were hard to make as at the time I was obsessed with making the pipes flush with the head so printingwould be easier as it would sit on the head. While I knew that pentagons would get that texture I mentioned before I

Materials:

    Once again I used my favorite colors. When the sleeve was printed the material used was thinner than I thought so the pentagons disapeared buy it still looks good.

Nash DeGroat Project 1 Tower

 Concept:

    After messing with the grasshopper file I settled on a helix structure as with the floors it can look similar to a strand of DNA. 

Proccess:

    In making this I made sure to put as much twist on the tower. While the theme is DNA I didn't want to keep a standard square shape so I went with a pentagon but I learned later that it would make the skin not as good. I wanted to have the skin alternate but with an odd number it doesn't work out so I leave two sections  as oposite of each other. This would help the DNA look as it gives two central walls like a strand. 

Materials:

    For the pipes I went with my favorite colors. After that I went with a rich blue for the skin and as such I went with red and orange to contrast the blue.

Nash DeGroat - ATCM 3355.001 Project 5: Prosthetic Model

 Concept: 

I wanted to make a gauntlet based off of one of the most popular arm attachments in anime, the Duel Disk from Yu-Gi-Oh. For this project I ignored the extended playing area and only focused on what was on the arm. On top of this I wanted to extend it so there would be material on the hand as well.

Proccess:

I started with the hand part and knew that I wanted to make the whole thing to have two distinct sides to the thing, so I made the left side of it more standard clean futuristic with the right being a more curvy fire aesthetic to it. I put the fire side on the right as this was modeled for my use so the right arm was used, (with it being the left if someone were right-handed). this caused the fire to be given more room as it did not contend with being closer to the body when held right. I always planned on putting some "jewel" in the disc part so to help connect the pieces I put another "jewel" in the hand which also helped make the change from future to fire not as jarring. The wrist piece is usually connected to the disc in depictions of them in the anime but for mine I separated them so that there would be more flexibility and breath ability for the arm. The shape of the disc itself is based of a specific character's disc that had a saw blade like design. This made it so that I had to make my disc eight parted to make sure that the duality of the piece is not lost. I modeled the pieces using re fence pictures of my own arm wearing the glove I attached them to.

Materials: 

For the gauntlet there would be multiple colors of PLA material used, white, red, and black. There are two other colors to be used but their final coloration not final with a temporary gold for the metallic bits and a tri color, leaning to blue-purple, for the "jewels"

Nibiru Panneflek-Cook ATCM 3355 F23: Extra Credit Regional High-Speed Rail (HSR)

Extra Credit: Regional High-Speed Rail (HSR)

Concept

Public transportation is a big part of my life and an infrastructural organ, requiring diligent attendance in any city with hopes of yielding positive life outcomes for its citizens. Having relied on the DART to commute between the southernmost areas of the DFW Metroplex and Richardson for school and social activities during my first semester at UTD, my own experience is a testament to how mass transit networks help riders develop rich and multifaceted lives affordably through communal interdependence. Taking design cues from a cutting-edge bullet train built to withstand extreme weather conditions in northern China, this model is an aesthetic prototype for a locomotive transport vehicle intended for use in Texas.

Reference(s)

Dallas Area Rapid Transit Light Rail

China Railway CR400AF-G

Processes

Using the "Box" command, I created a rectangular prism, then filleted it dramatically to achieve the typical HSR engine silhouette. I then mirrored this shape to create a second car facing the opposite direction and placed a wagon with evenly filleted edges in the center of the two. After making minor alterations to a pulley wheel I learned about in episode 17 of "From Curves to Surfaces," the undercarriage came together quickly and was made of filleted and chamfered primitives. I split the surfaces of the hull along their isocurves and assigned them to different layers to paint them separately. 

 

Episode 11 of "Analysis and Modeling Techniques" included a "mirror" command tutorial. By watching it, I found that it is best to mirror curves before turning them into surfaces. I applied this knowledge when creating the doors and windows for this project, drawing and offsetting outlines of them into one of its sides, then flipping them to the other for symmetry. Subsequently, I used the "Split" function to carve these elements into the vehicle. Finally, as instructed by the directions in episode 12 of "File Management and Prototyping," I ran "ShowEdges" to verify the integrity of my structure.

Deliverable(s)

Black Ghosted Image

Color Ghosted Image

Primary Render

Secondary Render

Materials

All the materials used in this model are alterations of stock assets from Rhino. The windows are heavily tinted glass, while the exterior boasts an orange and cream-colored paint finish. Both the wheels and doors are metal, albeit of different shades, and I used black plaster for the sealant in lieu of rubber.

 

Certificates

File Management and Prototyping

Analysis and Modeling Techniques

From Curves to Surfaces

Nash DeGroat ATCM 3355.001 F23: Project 4: Makercase Lamp

 Concept: I ended up making three lamps, one for myself and two to gift to family. For my personal one I based it off of various characters from Xenoblade while the other two had a farm theme using pictures of animals my family owns.

Proccess: I recrated one of the grasshopper voronoi files and first tried to use that to recreate the images. I quickly learned that that wouldn't work as it created a ton of overlapping lines so I had to change the end goal. Instead I was going to make siluetes of each subject and then instead of making it holely I would make them have different engrave levels to help define afterwards. I would also put the voronoi holes on the outside and cut through them. The order of the characters is important for the Xeno one as two of the characters have an associated color and the other two also wild their weapons. Because of this when put in the propper order it makes the blades line up on the left and right.

Materials: I used basic plywood and the directed cord. For the light I went out of my way to get a bright white light so that I can put a green transparent plasitic sheet on the inside of the Xeno lamp at a letter date.