Project 3

Project 3 - Documentation

1. Goal

I wanted to create a bracelet. It's the only jewelry that I own and wear on a daily basic. I went online to look for some inspiration and found this picture/color palette. I was also quite inspired by  the Voronoi & Delaunay  random generator from one of the examples in class.

• I use Delaunay, not Voronoi. I liked the sharp look better than Voronoi's softer cells.

• Generate the pattern with code. I wanted every new seed gives a new bracelet.

• Colourful!

• Learn the fabrication tools at Fimbel.

2.   Approach

This project is very straightforward. After some measuring in the lab, I decided that my bracelet will be printed with the size 170x26mm, which fits my wirst with about 10mm overlap. Every triangle edge is a stitch line. It should have a minimum spacing of 3.5mm between points since shorter stitch lines might bunch the thread and pucker the fabric. The code should join the edges into about 20 long continuous paths, so the machine can stitch longer runs without stopping.

Then finally, the software I used to print this is Fusion and Bambu.

I did ask Claude for the code of this assignment since it was pretty easy and requires no deep understanding of algorithms. I tried some colorways, then ended up with yellow/red/blue/green, considering that from all the default colors in Fimbel, this is my favorite .

I ended up choosing this one:

The final bracelet is 3D printed: 4 layers of 0.08 mm each, with a piece of fabric in the middle so it can curve around the wrist.

I was planning to embroider the design. But the embroidery machine needs a specialist, so appointments have to be booked well in advance, and I couldn't get one in time. I asked around the lab and ended up with the idea of printing onto fabric instead. The idea is that we first print the first 2 layers of the design onto the print bed, then pausing the print and lay the fabric over it; resume printing, thus the next 2 layers fuse through the fabric and lock it in place. The printed triangles stay in place while the fabric between them make them bend, hence the band curves around the wrist like a bracelet!

This is the final product (I could have chosen the pink fabric, but then changed my mind and use the blue/teal one instead)!

The algorithm's random colour layout couldn't be used directly. After extruding, Fusion only recognised the lines of the design, not the colours. So to get colour back, I filled in the triangles manually, choosing the colours randomly myself. It took a while, but the bracelet still ended up colourful.

Note: There was not a pictue of me filling in the colours, but this is the process right before that, when I was extruding the image from the file.