Yadira Anguiano : Week 8 MakerCase Lamp

Concept

For my concept, I wanted to create a lamp inspired by glowing Minecraft ore blocks. In Minecraft, there are a variety of different colored ores available for the player to mine, and I wanted to keep that concept so that each side of my lamp would be different. To keep the cube-like idea, I decided on making a square design instead of a rectangular lamp. I also decided LED lights would be a better choice of lighting, since it would make the final product adjustable and remove the need for a bulb. I also liked the idea that the user could change the lamp's color, or set it to change over time. The original design included a lava and glowstone side, but I replaced both sides to keep a more uniform look. 

Techniques

To create my laser cutting design, I began by adjusting my grid settings to .5 in spacing for every line. Since I was using boxes and straight lines, I found using grid snap to be the easiest way to align my design. From there, I created my curves using O-Snaps. To keep my shapes clean, I exploded each curve and deleted separating lines on boxes that spanned more than one row. To build my 3D model, I extruded the outer cut surfaces first, and used boolean difference on the inner cut surfaces afterward. I then created separate surfaces using extrude curve and planar surface for my raster and vector engravings, since I would be painting each section differently.

Materials

In Keyshot, I assigned a stone material to the base of my lamp, adjusting roughness settings so it would appear more textured and less smooth. Inside my lamp, I added a surface to each side so I could assign a color for each ore in keyshot. For this, I used a rough plastic material for every side except the red, which uses a colored glass for vibrancy. My raster areas use a rough cloth material, and the vector uses a hard grey plastic. I also used an inner light, which is assigned to a sphere inside of my model. For my physical model, I decided to spray paint the top and outer edges of my cube with a cement textured spray paint. The rest of the painting was done by hand using acrylics. I used transparent color overlay film on the inside of my cube for the different colored faces. After I completed my painting, I used a satin sealant overtop of the project.