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DIGITAL DESIGN + FABRICATION SM1, 2015 Open&Close

Bi Hanxuan673831

Michelle James Seminar 1

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Introduction

-Umbrella

The chosen object for this project is umbrella, the structure of this object is skin & bone.

In this project, the design is focused on the mechanism of the open & close system that the umbrella has. And try to achieve the effect by using the skin & bone structure.

Another factor about the object that I found interesting is that the user can decide when to use the protection provided by the umbrella, based on the weather condition.

These are the main aspects that I first wanted to apply into the design.

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Measured Drawing

Open Close

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1.0 IDEATION

After trying several ways of measuring, I decided to photograph the umbrella and trace it on paper.

In this way, it is easier to make the picture in the correct scale and do the measurements.I decided to use the scale of 1 to 2 for the plan, elevation and section, as an opened umbrella would be hard to fit on paper.

However, the drawing of the section requires a different method, as the photograph does not show the inside of the umbrella. So I used a scaled ruler to measure the detailed parts of the umbrella in order to draw the section of the object.

The detailed measured drawing allows me to use it for the Rhino model making, I used the plan and the elevation drawing to trace in the Rhino.

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Considering the structure of umbrella is skin & Bone, I decided to make use of the wooden structure of it. The advantage of this structure is that it is easy to configure an object by connecting the sticks together. After various of trying, I decided to make this drawing board as a reconfigured object. This object also is a skin and bone structure but is a completely different form compare to the umbrella.

The main idea of making this object is to create a personal tool that can let someone to express himself, as it is a tool of creating new ideas and can have limitless of possibility.

Sketch model

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The first sketch idea is focusing on how to protect the personal space using the skin & bone structure. The shape of the structure looks like a pair of wings because I want to represent the idea of escape, to escape the environment that the user find uncomfortable with. I also want the model to be better looking as I think this can help the wearer to feel more confident more the appearance is better.

The second aspect I focused on is the open & close mechanism of the umbrel-la. On the left is the closed form and on the right is the opened form. This idea is trying to explore how the wear can decide whether he wants to use the pro-tection or not, similar to the umbrella. In the closed form, the second skin still provide some protection by extending the shoulder area. When the structure is opened, the structure extends and cover the arms to provide more protection.

The third idea is trying to provide an area for the person that can express him-self, which is a similar idea as the reconfigured object, a drawing board. At the front of the chest is a changeable plate, that the person can write their feeling about the personal space. I think this can be an efficient way to express how people think about their person¬al space and inform to the others.

Sketch Ideas

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2.0 DESIGN

At this part of the design is developed as a team, we first decided to combine our sketch ideas in the previous module.

We each took an aspect of our ideas from Module 1 and putthem together to create a developed design that we thoughtresponded to personal space.

Billy’s idea focused on an object opening and expanding like anumbrella to extend the boundaries of the wearer’s personal spacewhen the object is open.

Xing’s idea was using the skin element as an opaque covering ofthe body, placed over the bones in a strategic manner.

Aye’s idea was establishing the different layers of the wearer’spersonal boundaries which varies for different parts of the body.

Xing’s Idea

Aye’s Idea

Billy’s Idea

Team member: Xing Yi (692049)

Aye Banez (698701) Bi Hanxuan (Billy) (673831)

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Development

The images shows a timeline of how we developed the ideas through the sketches, the final images is the rough idea of the structure that we all agreed on. It uses the mechanism of the umbrella which opens and closes or expanding and retracting to respond to different situa-tions that the wearer is in. Because the wearer is not always in a situ-ation where his/her personal space is being invaded, the object should allow interaction with people the wearer has a close relationship with.

Between the three of us, we valued our personal space around the shoulders and back area, hence why the second skin is placed on the back with varying sizes with more focus on the shoulders

Sketches - Aye Banez

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The idea was to structure the skin in a manner that would reflect the wearer’s idea of personal space; only blocking certain parts of the body that could make the wearer feel uncomfortable once the personal space is invaded.

Therefore the skin element of the design does not cover the bone structure, leaving areas to be hollow.

Rhino model - Aye Banez

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Precedent Research

Sketches - Xing Yi

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Sketches - Aye Banez

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Design Proposal v.2

Rhino model - Aye Banez

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Prototype

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Testing Effect

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Our previous attend of the structure design was focus on the back of the personal space. Since we measured this is the most unsecured area for our group member.

In order to further develop the design, we go back and trying to re-measure our personal space. We then release that the personal space between people can vary depends on the people’s gender.

For example, female feel more insecure about their personal space around the chest area. So we decided to extend our structure to the front of the user, in order to protect the personal space at that area.

Team member: Xing Yi (692049)

Bi Hanxuan (Billy) (673831)

3.0 FABRICATION

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Design development + fabrication of Prototype

For the front structure, we started with the mechanism of the structure, as we want the back & front structure to be able to open & close together, similar to the umbrella, it can open the whole structure in 360 degree simultaneously.

We tested the mechanism using prototype. By turning the original structure upside down, both the structure will open in clockwise direc-tion, which makes the mechanism of moving together possible.

For controlling the movement, we used a single string to connect the front & back structure.

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Rhino Prototype

Rhino model - Xing Yi

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Prototype development & Optimisation

Skin: The skin over the umbrella is the main protection for the user, as it provides a rain proof, so the skin is an important aspect for our design. We tried several ways of how the skin should be attached to the bone structure.

For this prototype we are trying to test the effect when the fabric is stretched over the bone structure.This type of skin is easy to connect to the bone structure. How-ever, it can only cover the personal space between the bone struc-ture and leaving the bone structure empty, which is not the effect we want at the beginning.

The second type of skin we came up is using a string to pull up the skin as the structure opens, this can gives the structure a sharp and maybe making the appearance more protective. However the problem for this type of skin is that the bone structure is blocking

For the last type of skin we tried out, is a combination of the first two prototypes. We wanted to make use of the stretchiness of the fabric and create a pattern that is stretched over the bone structure.This prototype of the skin creates both the effect of sharp and protected the area under the bone structure.

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Prototype Optimization

One problem that we found during the testing is that it is hard to connect the skin to bone tightly. We first tried double-side tape but it isn’t strong enough to hold the skin if we want to pull or stretch the skin.

After trying a few types of sticking taps we decided to sew the skin on to the bone as it is much stronger than the previous method, also it makes the model looks much better.The only disadvantage for sewing is that the time of the process is much longer than using tapes.

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Prototype Optimization

The material of the skin is also an issue during model making, regular cloth material isn’t stretchy enough for our case especially if we want to create the pulling effect and make the skin looks edgy.

After trying a few type of fabric we found that silk stocking is one of the most stretchy material. It allow us to create the stretch effect over the bone structure.

Skin Material:

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Prototype Optimization

Pivot:

One of the problem for our previous model is the material of the pivot. Previously we use wire as it is a strong material and easy to shape. However the feedback is the appearance it creates isn’t well.

After searching for replacement we found this pipe-like material that looks much better than the wire. In order to strengthen it we put additional wire through the pipe prevent it from breaking.

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Prototype Optimization

Connection to the body:

Our original attempt of connecting the structure to the body, is to sew the base structure directly to the strip. However, the string has to go over the structure and it does not looks nice.

So we redo our laser cut model by adding holes to the bone and base structure, enable us to sew without affecting the appearance of the model.

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Final Digital Model Plan

Plan

Elevation

Isometric

Rhino model - Xing Yi

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Fabrication Sequence

For the model making, we used lasercut to make the parts for the model.

We then sassembled each layer, and reinforced each of them using glue.

Then we attached them together by using atube with an extra iron wire inside it whichis stronger to connect each layer with thepivot point.

And finally we sewed the structure on to a fabric band so that we can wear it like a backpack.

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Assembly Drawing

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Final Model: Open form

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Final Model: closed form

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Final Model: (Back) Open form

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Final Model: (Back) Closed form

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4.0 REFLECTION

This subject introduced me to make models using more professional digital software, allows me to make models using materials that could not be used before. For instance learning to use Rhino allows me to use laser cut, so that I can use harder material for the model making. Although using such method has some limitation as it can only cut horizontally, which limited the model design process, but it allows gives us opportunities to create different patterns for our model. This cannot be experienced for us before this subject.

The first challenge we faced during our working process was to learn to use the new digital software, and using it to design the model in a limited period of time. This could cause us to spend less time on the design process, and also limited the design if we do not know the method of creating it using the software.

The second challenge we had was choosing the material for the model making, as we are allowed to use the material that we did not used before. It was hard at the beginning to decide which material is best for our model, as we need to consider the hardness, the appearance and the cost.

One of the things that could be improved is the joint between the parts of the bone. Some of the joint isn’t long enough so that we need to use glue to reinforce it. However even it is glued together, some parts are still not hard enough, and end up breaking, sometimes the parts break after the its all put together, which makes it very hard to start overall. Remake the model in rhino and laser cut could not been done due to the limited time period and the cost. Another problem that we had with the model was the movement was not smooth enough at the beginning. This was because the bone cut out was not accurate enough, and it was blocking the movement of the structure. To fix it we simply used sticking tape to stable the structure in order to avoid blocking the movement.