Week 3

Weekly Resource Folder

Tuesday April 16th

Reviewing Assignment 2 )

- Questions/ Challenges from Assignment 2/ Fusion 360 (Max/Devon)

--Break--

Introduction to Surfaces

- Meshes / Surfaces / Boundary Representations

A mesh is a collection of triangles and quadrilaterals. It is defined internally as a list of vertices (points) and faces (each face connects either three or four vertices).

A surface consists of a single smooth area but may have custom edges. If a surface is just a deformed rectangle and it has no custom edges, it is called an 'untrimmed' surface. Surfaces with custom edges or holes punched into it is called a 'trimmed' surface.

A Boundary Representation (brep) is one or more surfaces joined together. If a brep only contains a single face, then it is the same thing as a surface. For surfaces to be joined together into a brep, they need to share some of their edges.

Geometry refers to all types of geometry supported by core Grasshopper, this includes meshes, surfaces, and breps, but it also includes boxes, curves, lines, circles, points, etc.

- Basic Surface and Mesh Creation in Grasshopper
- Creating Parameterized surfaces with Grasshopper and Python Link
- Advanced notice of weekly assignment- Printer Signup
  1. 3D print a lampshade: Example 1, Example 2, Example 3
  2. Printing time considerations- slice early on!
  3. Tools for mesh repair: mesh repair in Fusion 360 (use with caution)

After Class

Comment on at least two student assignments on Instructables
Complete the reading.
Post a slide with your reading reflections to the shared google slide deck by 6 PM Wed April 19th.

Reading

Madeline Gannon, Tovi Grossman, and George Fitzmaurice. 2015. Tactum: A Skin-Centric Approach to Digital Design and Fabrication. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '15). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1779–1788. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702581

Reading Prompt:

Gannon presents a system for CAD via direct manipulation on the object of interest (the human body in this case). Reflecting on your last two weeks of working with standard CNC hardware (the 3D printer), and CAD software (Rhino/Grasshopper) reflect on the opportunities of Gannon’s approach with regards to design and fabrication expressiveness.

Note: Reading prompts are optional. Feel free to discuss elements of the reading that resonate with you.

Thursday April 18th

Reading Discussion on Tactum (25 minutes)

- Reading reflection slides

--BREAK--- check out 3D printing of lampshade in lab

Preparing Designs for 3D printing

- Prepping your 3D printer for printing (the basics)
  1. Components of the printer and overview (Ender 3 Pro review)
  2. Bed leveling and zeroing. Optional: You can also review the advanced calibration steps and mods (many of which are printable on the printer)
  3. Filament loading and unloading
- Slicing Basics
  1. File formats workflow- Grasshopper-> Bake -> Rhino -> .STL -> GCode
  2. Settings for the Ender 3
    - Printing speed - the speed at which the printer head travels and extrudes materials
    - Layer height - height of individual layers of your print
    - Print temperature - temperature the nozzle heats up to.
    - Printing bed temperature - temperature the bed heats up to.
    - Retraction - The rate and behavior at which a printer retracts filament when moving over non-printed areas
    - Infill - density (and structure) of the material between the walls of the print
    - Fan speed- speed of the fan that cools the print
    - Speed of the first layer - reduced speed for the first layer to encourage adhesion to the build plate
  3. Support Structures and Printing tests
    - Limitations of support structures: Increased printing time, deformed printing surfaces
    - Test prints: Calibration shapes will help you to diagnose issues with your printer!

Using the CURA slicing software

Slicing solid geometry
Slicing surfaces

Procedural and Parametric Transformations

Questions on parameterizable surfaces
Adapting surfaces to existing geometry
- Rhino Sample File
- Grasshopper Sample File

Description of Assignment

Assignment

Create a shade for an existing lamp or light fixture in your home.

Using any of the past approaches (2d pattern to 3d surface, surface from points, revolution of a profile curve), design a lamp shade in Grasshopper.
Find an existing light fixture in your home. Measure the diameter of the light fixture base (where the shade attaches, and create a part that will correctly nest with the fixture in Rhino.
Perform a boolean operation between the shade and the test part.
Maximum dimensions of the design are: 220 by 210 by 210 mm. We will not print designs larger than this!
Ensure the design is 3D printable by checking its edges and slicing it in the Cura 3D software.
1. Slice your design in vase mode to speed up printing time. If your design is not in vase mode, we will not print it!
2. Upload thee STL and the Cura file of your design to this folder

All initial prints are due on Friday due to printing time and the need to swap out designs. Please come into the lab on Friday if you are available to set up your first print.
Print Signup

Student Examples: Example 1, Example 2, Example 3

Tools for mesh repair: meshlab

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