Eric Lam: Pepakura

I made this pepakura because I wanted to create a piece with a light source. this was partially inspired by a lantern I saw in a game and the rest of it was designed to go along with it. I also had some electroluminescent wire that I've been meaning to play around with. 

I modeled this in rhino. I created the first "arm" and rotated the piece with copy turned on. The base was a square pyramid with another extrusion on the bottom to make it taller. 

 

Eric Lam: Serial Slices

Concept: For this assignment I wanted to create an organic looking object. I turned to my backyard for inspiration and I found that our pear tree was budding. I used this bud as the basis of this assignment.

 

Technique: I first created the base of the object using lines. I then modified the base and moved this curve up to the height I wanted the piece to be. Then using the sweep 2 command as well as another vertical curve, I created the shape that kind of resembled the fruit bud. Using contour in rhino I proceeded to "slice" the model and used those curves for laser cutting.

Materials: For the laser cut material I decided to stick with the .25 in thick cardboard. The materials for the rendering however, it's an orange transparent glass. I chose this material because glass looked interesting and different shades of orange can be seen at different angles.

Eric Lam: Slots

Concept: This assignment was interesting one. I approached this one as if I were designing lego pieces. I wanted the pieces to have the ability to be connected in multiple ways. They follow the same overall shape, but will have different positioning of slots for joining at different angles.

Technique: I created two circles and a square to create the basic shape. Then I created a bunch of lines passing through the center point of each circle, the square, and anywhere I saw an interesting approach. I then used curveboolean to finalize the design.

Model: For the materials I decided to use 1 ply cardboard because I wanted a thin piece of cardboard, but not as thin as eflute. I was afraid eflute wouldn't have been sturdy enough or thick enough for the slots to "grip" each other.

 

Eric Lam : Laser Engraving

Concept: This laser engraving was based on my 3d printed object. I wanted to create an engraving that appeared to be like a blueprint. This layout was chosen to show an orthographic view from different angles. 

Technique: This engraving was fairly simple. I followed the tutorial posted on elearning and used the make2D command in rhino. I positioned the model to create a top, side and overall view for engraving. Then I positioned them within the reference and created a border.

Materials: For my engraving material, I chose a birch plywood because I liked the light color as well as the particular wood grain. It turned out pretty well and I may coat it in a blue tinted polyurethane.

Alec McKay: Pepakura

Concept: I was inspired by some of the other figures I've seen in the ATEC building, so I decided that I wanted to do a figure. However, to do a full figure the way I would want to would end up well over 300 polygons, so I decided to do one that is just the torso, as I have seen done in a few different Greek marble statues and other sculptural work. I also wanted my figure to have a more dynamic pose than just standing straight up and down, so I adjusted the torso after modeling it to give it more of a pose.

Technique: I modeled the torso in Maya, beginning with a cube and a few reference images of a male torso. I added more edge loops and moved points around gradually until the torso began to take shape. Initially I modeled a figure with arms, legs, and a basic, featureless head, until I decided to stop trying to lower the density of my model further and just remove those extra parts. Once that was done, I used bend and twist deformers to pose the figure. From there, I converted the model to an .obj and went about the process of unwrapping it, placing the seams in rings around the torso, and then moved the 2D images to rhino to be cut. Once I got my pieces back, I started from the top and worked my way down, since the legs were where I would have a base with a hole. I also covered all of my edges with white tape.

Materials: For the physical sculpture, I decided to go with Professor Scott's suggestion of the E-Flute cardboard, because it is a thin cardboard that is sturdy enough to hold its shape but thin enough to fold well. The bottom plane of the sculpture is cut from 2-ply cardboard, for a sturdier base. I also used a white tape to cover my edges for a more finished looking product. There are also weights placed in the legs so that his leaning pose doesn't cause him to fall over. In my KeyShot renderings, I decided to make my model out of stone, to see what it would look like as a stone statue.

One of my favorite parts of this project was the physical work of putting the pieces together. I actually tried a small scale pepakura work once before when I was in high school, with less success. The larger scale made it easier to put together. This was one of my favorite projects, and I look forward to doing more projects with the laser cutter while I'm still at school.

Will McKiernan Pepakura

For this project, I wanted to continue with the theme of wolves because I believe the embody the harmony of elegance and power found in nature. I also wanted to create something that could be replicated at a smaller scale to become something like a mask. I also wanted to challenge myself to create something in Maya because I have little skill in that software and felt this would be a very beneficial exercise in that area.

I began modeling in Maya be cutting a sphere into fourths. I used the vertex tool to stretch the faces into the position I wanted them. I also used the extrude edge to add extra geometry to my model. I focused on modeling only one side of the head so that I could mirror the geometry and have a symmetrical model. After I had the basic shape I wanted, I went back through the model and merged vertices where necessary to create loops so that slicing it in the pepakura software would be much easier. Once in pepakura, I sliced along the loops and also down the middle to create identical halves. I removed all edge numbers except the ones essential to knowing which pieces came together.

As with the last pepakura project I thoroughly enjoyed the hands-on putting together of the model. This time I was much more generous with the Loctite and it resulted in a much sturdier build. Some cut lines on some of the faces had not actually been  cut and resulted in a little warping, but overall it came out very well.

Victoria Mayfield & Jonathan Gloria: Purple Rain Pepakura

Concept: When we first began trying to come up with ideas for a successful pepakura project, we knew we wanted to do something from nature. We researched different possibilities like trees, mountains, even rainbows. We ended up deciding on a raincloud. We then decided to model a lightning bolt as well as raindrops to be suspended by fishing line.

Modeling: The modeling was pretty basic. We used Maya for most of our modeling, and Rhino for scaling. For the cloud, we created a sphere, extruded it and pulled it into the general shape we wanted. Then we used the sculpt geometry tool to pull out the bumps of the cloud. We used rhino to create the lightning bolt. For that, we simply created the main body shape using the curve tool, I then extruded that curve, and capped off the open faces. The rain drops were created in Maya by simply extruding a box multiple times, and merging the vertices on each side to one point. We then used Rhino to scale three different sizes of the raindrops to create some interest using size.

Materials: For the materials, we used eflute cardboard, as it is best for pepakura. We then went over the seams of the cloud with white duct tape to give the cloud a more uniform shape and feel. For the raindrops, we decided to coat them in purple glitter to commemorate Prince after his tragic passing. From there, I used an exacto knife to cut organic lightning shapes into the lightning bolt, and lined the inside of the bolt with LED lights. This created a really nice effect when the LEDs would reflect off the purple glitter on the raindrops. I then used a thing white masking tape around the edges of the lightning bolt to hold everything together. We attached the rain drops and the lightning bolt to the bottom of the cloud with fishing line and super glue. Then used fishing line and a metal ring attached to the top of the cloud to create an apparatus to hang the cloud from. Overall, we are very pleased with how the project turned out and think it’s a beautiful homage to one of the greatest and most influential musical artists of our time.