Eugenio Gonzalez Lazo: Week 12 Makercase Lamp

Concept/Inspiration:
Yes, I am back again making my projects be Dallas Mavs themed, and the inspiration for this lamp was Dirk Nowitzki's long and successful career. Dirk was known for his signature fadeaway jumper, and the silhouette of this shot became popular as it helped him win a championship in 2011. I knew from the beginning this was an element that had to make it into my final design. I also incorporated his made-shot chart during the 2011 playoffs, and I initially wanted to list all of his major achievements on a side, but after realizing how expensive it could be, I pivoted to a basketball shape.

Process:
After envisioning the silhouette of Dirk's fadeaway jumper as an inner cutout with wax paper to diffuse the light, I wanted to execute this twice on opposite sides to create a halo effect around the lamp. The align tool was crucial in ensuring all of the pieces fit snugly together. To create the complex lines of the basketball court for the shot chart side, the split tool was very helpful in getting a correct radius of the part of the 3 point line curve, since using a half circle for this would make the proportions incorrect. The mirror tool for the inside details of the court were helpful to keep everything centered and aligned. When creating the layout for laser cutting, explode was helpful in order to get rid of one line of each side in order to decrease the cost of the print. Finally, in order for the Dirk silhouette to be fully lit, I created an indent in that side of the bottom side so is fully lit.

Materials: In Keyshot, I assigned a wood material and then applied a blue tint to it in order to give it a look of painted blue wood. For the wax paper, I used Translucent Candle Wax to give it that opaque look and allow light to go through. For the wire, I just used Matte black to bring less attention to it. Lastly for the Dallas and Miami lettering, I used a White Paint Matte to resemble what I wanted to do in real life with it. To light it, I used the sunset preset, and aligned the angle to match that of the desk lamp. For my Physical piece, I used MDF, and painted it blue to match the look I wanted. I used parchment paper to cover the sides with Dirk's silhouette, and used Loctite to glue it all up.