STEAM CAD

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Description

STEAM CAD 1.0 is inspired by the tables Leonardo da Vinci (Da Vinci tables) used to combine exaggerated physical features to generate ideas for his famous caricatures. Thus, they are the creative engines that drive my creativity system. 

I've repurposed his tables as an analogue knowledge engineering system that I created to optimize my artistic productivity. I did this by combining three kinds of creativity in one system: structural, tabular, and nested creativity. 

The first is like Lego. But instead of bricks as building blocks, I use points, lines, polygons, and polyhedra as the components with which to build topological structures. 

The second (Da Vinci tables) works like a multiplication table. But instead of numbers, I put words for components in the left column, words for structures in the top row and in place of the multiplication operation I use the construct or deconstruct operations. Then, I fill out the table with combinations of components and structures that I then use as ideas for my graphic designs. 

The third one is like the Russian nesting dolls. In place of the dolls there are tables an inside the output cells of each Da Vinci table there is another table. Since I use a five-level hierarchy in STEAM CAD that means there are five sets of tables one set at each level. The number of table(s) at any given level is determined by the number of output cells of the table(s) at the level above it/them. 

Function

STEAM CAD is designed to engineer and reverse engineer STEAM knowledge including mathematics that simultaneously generates and classifies it. Composite data structures produced with STEAM CAD can be used as the inspiration for graphic designs using a CAD program like Great Stella 4D Pro that are then exported to 3D printer software for physical realization using 3D Printing technology. 

Architecture

STEAM CAD is organized in a five-level nested hierarchy modeled on academia. The five levels as:

Level 5. University

Level 4. Departments

Level 3. Disciplines

Level 2. Categories of Objects

Level 1. Objects

The STEAM University is composed of the Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics departments that when combined produce composite departments (Figure 1). 

While STEAM CAD 1.0 is powerful even at this stage of development, it is inefficient as it requires manual data entry in tables constructed with a word process. In order to optimize its efficiency, it needs to be implemented as software. 

(Figure 1)

At the next level down, there are the disciplines that compose each department. The mathematics department in STEAM CAD, for example, would have a predefined set of disciplines with the ability to manual add more. 

Below that are the categories that define each discipline based on the objects each study. For example, the categories of geometry include, points, lines, polygons, and polyhedra among others. 

Da Vinci Tables

Da Vinci tables are the generative engines of STEAM CAD that produce data structures by combining data. I use these tables like multiplication tables, and they work the same way but with structural and compositional inputs, operations, and outputs (Figure 2). 

(Figure 2)

If you are interested in using such tables to enhance your own creativity, you are invited to use my free app, Tinker Tables. It's a simple to use creativity engine.