March 25th: Today, my partner, Elizabeth, and I were deciding which project we were going to pursue this semester. We were decided between making a prosthetic hand and making a lot of small 3d printed pieces to make tasks like holding a bag or a cup easier for disabled adults and children, but we ultimately decided to make a prosthetic leg because we thought it would be a challenge, but we also believed that by looking at designs from other resources, we could try to create a prosthetic leg, connected to a foot by an ankle brace. We began strategizing and searching on common design websites like instructables and adafruit for prosthetic designs, and there was not much that came up on those sites when we looked, so we are going to have to look up prosthetic legs on more broad sites like google, just to get a better idea of what we are making and potential approaches to how we are going to make this prosthetic leg.
March 26th: Today, we continued our search to find out how to make a prosthetic leg. When we searched on google images, we found really creative designs with cut out lines and squares on the 3d printed leg. We wanted to create a 3d printed leg that looked similar to these designs, but none of the images we found had tutorials or any guiding instructions on how to make the leg. We then continued to search for any kind of instructions to help us create this project, and we realized that there were not many tutorials or designs that could be used to help us create this project, so we were going to have to start from scratch and try to replicate the design in the image we saw on the internet.
March 27th: Today, we looked up various designs we could potentially scan for leg design, in order to create the shape of a leg in Fusion. We thought that if we could get a 3d model or a sketch of a leg that we could trace or modify in Fusion, in order to have the basic structure of a leg, we could then add whatever patterns and features we wanted on the leg. We found one website with a 3d, rotating model of the leg that we wanted to try to scan in Fusion. We thought we could manipulate it in order to trace and then make a 3d model out of the leg model, so then we could create the patterns we wanted. We also found one other helpful source, that we would try if the other website did not work when we downloaded it into Fusion.
March 28th: Today, we downloaded the model of the leg design but Fusion would not recognize the leg model as a sketch so we were not able to create, modify or cut around it. This meant that we would not be able to just scan the leg. We then found a website that had leg prosthetics already created like the image we were basing our leg design after, so we downloaded those files into fusion, and we were unable to edit or see the sketches beneath the body of the leg design, so we could not build off of the already made files, but we decided that we could use the leg and foot designs created by this website in order to have a prototype, so we could better see the shape of the leg and foot and the dimensions needed to created on the leg, but we could still make our own leg design with our own creative pattern.
March 29th: Today, we attempted to print the foot prototype. When setting up the 3d printers to print the foot, we set the dimensions to scale 15.51%, so the foot could fit on the 3d printer and not be a very long print or be very large, since it was just a prototype. When we followed our 3d printing workflow, setting the temperature to 210 degrees Celsius and the bed temperature to 60 degrees celsius and after the 3d printer was heated to the proper temperatures, we extruded the PLA to make sure the printer was working and not jammed. We printed the foot, and the printing ultimately failed, so we would have to print it again tomorrow.
April 1st: Today, we printed the leg prototype and the foot prototype. We decided since the foot prototype failed, we should increase the percentage of the scaling to around 21% in order to have a little more room for the 3d printer to create the objects, so will less likely fail, because that was the problem with the previous print attempt, the specific designs in such a small space was hard without the 3d printer messing up the print. We followed our 3d printer workflow, setting the temperature to 210 degrees Celsius and the bed temperature to 60 degrees celsius and after the 3d printer was heated to the proper temperatures, we extruded the PLA to make sure the printer was working and not jammed. We then printed the foot and leg successful and had a prototype to work off of.
April 2nd: Today, we worked on finding an ankle joint and how we can make the ankle joint. We researched different ways we could connect the foot and leg and still have mobility in the ankle to move the foot, so we had to find a way to make an ankle joint. We considered a variety of different methods, such as a spring just as a smile method for minimal movement. We then came across ankle joints that we could buy in order to move the foot back and forth, and we found one website with a specific joint called a joint bushing that we decided instead of buying, that we would try to replicate and 3d print the parts to make the joint in order to go to our specific design of the leg and foot. We will begin looking into the specific skrews and dimensions needed create this joint in a later class.
April 3rd: Today, I worked on trying to replicate the leg by own design on fusion. We decided to divide and conquer the project, or break it into pieces in order to accomplish more, so Elizabeth is going to work on creating the ankle joints and finding the dimensions to create the ankle joints, and I am going to work on creating the design for the actual leg. There will be a link to Elizabeths daily journal and her portfolio on my portfolio to be able to see the work being done with the ankle joints and what she did and how we together made this project. I began by creating some simple lines and splines in order to see if I could just simply create a leg shape by creating lines and extruding. I was able to make a cylinder-like shape for the leg, and was able to create a hole to make the "leg" hollow, but this simple design, I realized was not going to be as easy to create the actual leg, because the leg has curves throughout it and gets thinner as it goes down the leg. So this design, I saved on fusion as leg 1, so I could see the progression of my designs and go back to previous designs if necessary.
April 4th: Today, I worked on creating a sketch for the leg by finding the dimensions for the leg and the dimensions of the leg that make it fit with foot. I was able to draw a whole diagram, to the best of my ability, by first drawing what the prototype of the leg looked like. I made all the dimensions according to the prototype, so I could scale it in the future uniformly. I measured the length of the leg and width, but also the length of the curves, where each curve was on the legs, the length and width of the foot hole to make sure it matched the leg bottom dimensions. I also measured the thickness of the leg, the distance between the squares in the pattern, the length of the solid area on the leg, counted how many little holes were on the top and bottom of the leg, and I did the foot dimensions as well. This will be helpful for me to refer to moving forward.
April 5th: Today, I began working on created leg design 2. I began by drawing splines, using the fit spline tool, making each line of the leg its own individual spline. I tweaked the lines a lot in order to make a drawing as similar to the one I created. It was hard to get the lines to the curve I wanted, especially the curve that was just a slight curve down, but was enough detail to be important in making the leg. I had to learn to use the free check after every spline I made, so then I could drag the curve out or up or down to make it as long or out as I wanted it to, making it look similar to the drawing I created and the prototype leg as well. This created the outside dimension or layer of my leg, giving it the shape it needed, to eventually be extruded once I created inner dimension shape to eventually cut out of the outer sketch.
April 8th: Today, I watched a curvature video to help with leg design. I thought if I figured out how to use this tool on Fusion, it would allow me to type in the exact dimensions I wanted of my curves and exactly where I wanted them, so I could make the exact dimensions of my drawing and of the prototype. When I researched and watched videos regarding this tool, it acted more as a line to see a curve, rather than creating curves or creating the dimensions of curves, so it was not as helpful as I thought it would be, but I would keep trying to find tools to help me bend the object exactly how I wanted to.
April 9th: Today, I watched several bending objects videos that were on Fusion in order to help me with my design. The objects typically included bending a fork or other random object, but I was most interested in the fork, because even though the fork was a the reverse was I wanted the curve, it was a similar curve to the leg that needed to be created. When I watched these videos, hoping to find out more information on how to bend object, most of the the videos I watched, typically just involved the splines being created and then extruding the line right away. I thought this could potentially be useful to help create the curve, but also create the hole at the same time in my object, but when I attempted to extrude or press pull just a line on fusion, it would not allow me to do that action, so I was unable to do what the tutorials were doing, so I will continue to look for ways to curve my object and create the hole in the leg.
April 10th: Today, I worked on creating the inner splines to create the same object that the outer sketch of the leg was, just slightly smaller so I could potentially use this sketch to make a cut in the outer sketch and create the hole and shape needed to make the leg, while also having a reasonable distance or thickness of the leg to be able to be 3d printed and still maintain the shape. I then, tried just extruding this inner part of the leg to see what kind of shape or how much of a leg it would look like. I then created a fillet on all the edges, making the fillet go as far as the limit was, which was around a 3 to 5mm limit, but made all the sides curved. This also was a good design I wanted to keep to potentially build off later, so I saved this design as leg 2, and copy and pasted the sketch of the inner and outer splines of the leg, into another document to begin building off of them.
April 12th: Today, I worked on deciding how I was going to print the leg. I decided if I made two sides, I could extrude them in opposite directions, and bring them together after they are 3d printed. I then, copy and pasted the inner and outer sketches of the leg to now have two copies of them. I then, tried to extrude just the area between the inner and outer sketches around 30mm, but this would not make a complete side, just having an outer loop, no connecting sides to make the leg a hole, rather than just a loop. I will work on developing the hole more in my next class.
April 15th: Today, I worked on creating the hole in leg. I tried use the second sketch copies, but since they were copied together, they only could be made together, so just extruded all to 30mm, and could not separate them, so the two different copies were obviously not going to work together, and so I decided just to work with one copy and potentially split it later, after building it, in order to 3d print. I also undid the extruding in my original sketches from yesterday's class, so I could figure out a better way to make a hole in the leg and maintain the shape. I can try to use the combine tool, which is how in videos I watched, how people typically subtract objects from other object, which I can do with my inner and outer sketches, creating a hole rather than a loop, but now I just have to figure out how to extend my sketch to make the hole all through the sketch.
April 16th: Today, I tired to create or extend my sketch on the inner sketch of my leg to my outer sketch of my leg. Connecting the inner and outer sketches of the leg would make the hole visible throughout drawing. When I did this, it was still not cutting through the object completely, and was more going to the sides and not through the center of the leg object. I decided to undo the lines I created to conned the inner and outer sketches, and redrew them, to try to extrude them. I am going to make the hole next class.
April 17th: Today, I created a hole in the leg. I used the combine tool ultimately, and selected all the pieces not the outer piece and subtracted them from the outer piece, to make the hole. I then added fillets to make the edges of the leg a little more curved, but not all the lines are allowing me to make curves all around leg, so the leg as a whole is not rounded, and I need to work on this, and I also need to decide how to complete the leg, whether extruding to make the completing side of the leg or another tool.
April 23rd: Today, I watched a mirroring video for fusion to see how to mirror a whole object to make other side of leg, to see if this was a good option to create the leg, or if I should or can cut it in the end to make the leg easier to print in 2 pieces. I ended up extruding the sketch 2mm in the opposite direction of the extruded body already created that had a hole in it, but I had to undo fillets so the new body would fit with the old body. After completing the object, I could then add fillets to make the object a little more rounded. I had to press pull one sides of leg to 2mm to make it easier to be able to make fillets and to be uniform with other side. I ended up push pulling all the sides to make them seem more uniform. I press pulled one side to 4mm and other side to add one more mm. I gave 1mm inside for fillets and 2mm outside for fillets. The inside fillets are smaller because there were restrictions, not allowing me to make fillets greater than 1mm for fillets on top. Now I need to make similar fillets to the bottom of the leg. I then, created bottom fillets with same measurements as the top. Now need to try to make sides as rounded as I can to make it look less square and similar to a rounded leg.
April 24th: Today, I created fillets for the edges. I created fillets of 3mm because that is the furthest it would allow me to do on one side and I wanted the sides to be uniform. It is difficult to make the sides more rounded. I watched a video of chamfer techniques and the technique did not work on my object, the function was unable to be used with my object. I still need to make my object more rounded, and also create the inner pattern on the leg.
April 25th: Today, I tried to find out how to make my object all around more rounded, so I watched videos for fusion on how to make sculptures and forums. There was one video similar to how round I want the leg to be and there were also videos of just basic structures being built in forum and how to use that tool. For the video similar to the shape of the leg, there are several techniques that could be useful in making a leg design 4, but I would have to figure out how to cut out shapes to make the leg rounded, not just shapes on top of shapes making the leg rounded, like the video of the object in the sculpture video demonstrated. This is an option to try to start from scratch with sketches to do this, but I can also still try to modify my original sketches. There are certain techniques that could be useful to creating a more rounded leg, but overall I am still going to need to try to make the leg rounded, while maintaining the shape, so I will have to continue working on this for my project.
April 26th: Today, I decided to go back to my second design of the foot because it was more rounded to start. I made an inner sketch to cover the distance in order to make a hole, extending the sides all the way to the top of the outer sketch to make the hole go through the whole leg sketch. I then extruded the inner piece 30mm to make the hole, and used combine to subtract it from larger outer object. It is very difficult to make the other side, and I am working on completing this other side to complete the leg. It is especially hard because the fillets are already made. I extruded on side 2mm, so it could fit to the other side to complete the leg, and the biggest fillets I could make on whole object was 1mm, now I’m try to fit the two objects together and am having trouble.
April 29th: Today, I am trying to create a new side by trying to make a new sketch and trying to combine the sides of the leg with this new side I am creating, but it still won’t work to fit all gaps and curves on the leg. I'm going to try to make the sketch on the top perspective of box to make it fit and for sketch to be on opposite side of the box and lie directly on top of the sides of the leg already made. If this fails then I will try to mirror the object and manipulate length of sides to still be rounded and not as thick of sides.
April 30th: Today, I'm going to mirror just that one side of the leg to complete the leg. I watched a video on the construction tool on fusion in order to try to make a line to mirror on. I tried to do it without line and it would not let me, and I tried to make a construction line but it needed to be a plane because a line does not work to mirror on, and at the moment it won’t mirror on plane I want,so I need to try a new approach to mirroring. I needed to mirror a component to make it work so now can mirror, so I made the object a component. I offset the plane at 18.2mm, which was halfway through the object I wanted to create, and I extruded the figure to cut to the plane, and so whole figure then mirrored on that plane, so ½ created on other side and completed figure. Now I need to do dimensions with inspect tool and need to make pattern.
May 3rd: Today, I needed to use the inspect tool to find out the dimensions I made my leg and how wide foot were to make sure my leg would fit in the foot, and good news is it is smaller so I can scale the leg by about twice as much in order to make the leg proportionate to the foot and also have it fit possible a little loser so the ankle joints could have more control, now I just need to make pattern and print and make it line up with foot. I took measurements for all of leg with inspect tool just to have. I need to print prototype of my design to make sure it works, tried to download foot files but wouldn’t on computer so I had to use Elizabeth’s already downloaded files.
May 6th: Today, I printed out a mini prototype of my leg to see what I’m working with before I create pattern. This way I could see how wide it was and how long and wide the bottom was, and also see if it was round enough to be considered a leg or have the correct shape of a leg. I printed this prototype because I would rather realize issues on a small prototype rather than after a 9hr print to realize I had an issue. It gives me a general idea of the leg I will print.
May 7th: Today, I changed the mirror plane or adjusted it so the sides would not be as large so I could attempt to make it more rounded. I just moved the plane to make it go less into the sides of the leg, so when I mirrored it, the sides would be less thick and square and could become slightly more rounded like a leg. Now I can start adding pattern.
May 8th: Today, I started making the pattern on my leg. At first, I tried using the pattern tool in order to make evenly spaced and same size squares easily and faster. The pattern tool ended up not working, not creating the multiple squares that I wanted it to, and would end up seeming like it would make the pattern, then the squares would just disappear, so I will have to make each square separately on my leg around the whole leg.
May 9th: Today, I made the holes on my leg. I started by making the squares even 5 by 5 mm squares, but I thought this would be too many squares and take too long with the time limit I had remaining on the project, so I decided to make the holes 8 by 5mm holes, and then had to improvise and make various sizes of holes on the sides, so they did not combine and make bigger holes with the holes I had already created on front and back of the leg. I made the squares as sketches and then press pulled them by around 100 mm, just so the squares would go through both sides of the leg and be equal. After I made the leg, I exported it as an stl, I had it as a combined leg, but later changed it to two exported stl files, so it could print at two different times and take less time on the 3d printer.
May 10th: Today, I printed the 1st half of my leg. The print was set to be around 250% of the original print and was approximated to take around 10hrs, so I could only print 1/2 of the leg today because it was so big and could only be printed on the big printer.
May 11th: Today, I printed the second half of my leg. This took around the same time as the first side of the leg, and I attempted to print the foot on a smaller printer and on a much smaller scale of around 33%, but the foot ended up failing, so I would have to print this again later.
May 13th: Today, I printed the foot for my project, and it was much smaller than the leg, but we had to come up with a way to put the ankle joints, the leg, and the foot altogether to make a prosthetic leg. We connected the two pieces of the leg by zip ties, that were black, so they blended in a little better, and we used velcro on the ankle joints and the sides of the leg and foot to be able to put the ankle joints on the leg, and we ended up having to drill a hole in the foot to be able to use zip ties to connect the back and front of the leg to the foot, so it would be more stable and try to hold it together. Before we put it together, we also had to scrape out all of the support that the printer printed out that was on the sides of the leg.This was our project, and we will continue to make improvements to make our leg stand more stable and have more fluidity between joints and the leg and foot.