[belated journal]
Jan 29, 2016
Furniture Jam
People:
Eric Yao, collaborator with Yotam & Maneesh on cool WYSIWYG joint making.
Matthias
Toby
Josh
May-Li
Paula
Here are a few more notes from the jam that happened awhile ago.
We brainstormed:
I also printed a list of interesting joints, for inspiration, etc:
Toby, Josh, Eric, and I tried working as a group to create the paper holder idea. Here are some prototypes. Toby made one using Combscript (the one on the left), and Eric made one from SketchUp (right). It was neat to see someone else’s process in fabricating 3D objects. Using SketchUp, Eric was able to “see” the object and its proportions before deciding on whether or not to laser cut it. My gut instinct from using SketchUp is that I won’t get an accurate feeling of scale from looking at the model, and the best way to see proportions is to quickly prototype the form. But obviously, for more complicated structures, modeling in SketchUp is very valuable.
I think the other benefit of starting with SketchUp instead of starting with 2D drawing programs is that you’re not locked in to flat sheets of material; you can start to see when fabrication processes like 3D printing might actually be more useful for the object you want to create.
Toby’s second iteration of the paper holders is this simple envelopes-on-foam-core design
A meta-note on group work: the paper-holder team ended up splitting up after awhile and prototyping their own designs. This makes sense for the scope of the design we wanted to work on. It was an interesting experiment though - in cases like this I’d want to make sure we lay out goals for collaboration next time.
I wanted to see how this “T-nut joint” would work with the laser cut pieces. It makes a pretty good joint you can tighten:
Finally, later that evening I made a structure to support an acrylic sheet over the XY plotter. I finished fitting all the pieces together today.
Heart the arrow!We could use these for a self guided gallery tour when we are back up and running!Va
Sent from my iPhone
On Jan 29, 2016, at 8:06 PM, Joshua Horowitz wrote:[-cdgsf]JAM REPORT: JOSHI had never laser-cut anything before today, but it turns out it is actually really easy (at least, with guidance from practiced laser-cutters). And it is so satisfying. So, so satisfying. I don't know what evolutionary drive deserves credit for the dopamine rush I get when I punch out precut pieces of medium-density fiberboard, but it is far more productive than most of my evolutionary drives and I am not complaining.I made an arrow!<IMG_1472.JPG>(Paula brought up the arrow idea in brainstorming, possibly inspired by Bret?)Close-up:<IMG_1474.JPG>As I alluded to, this is medium-density fiberboard. Everything is joined together using press-fit slots with specs taken from Toby's "grid system". I put my source files (Comb Script for the rectangular stuff, SVG for the arrow itself) up in the laser-cutter Dropbox in a folder called "whiteboard". This link might work: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5ovq8e9lzvq2pud/AABYc9N3jsQsTqY8x1DWfcP3a?dl=0.WARNING: The arrow SVG is 90dpi because Inkscape seems to demand that. You can turn it into a PDF with "cairosvg arrow.svg -o arrow.pdf -d 90". If you accidentally run "cairosvg arrow.svg -o arrow.pdf -d 72", the arrow will be cut off the edge of the page, so you will probably notice.The arrow is cute. Painting it would make a world of difference in the salience department.These modular whiteboard-top brackets seem like nice things to have around. I have some extras if you want to experiment.I had a really great time today, and I feel more empowered now to make things in the world. Thanks to Paula and Toby and everyone else who made this happen and helped me out!On Fri, Jan 29, 2016 at 3:19 PM, Toby Schachman wrote:I've made a script for converting combscript svg's into laserable pdf's.To use, first you'll need to share the lasercutter dropbox with yourself. Login to dropbox with:email: **********************************Share the "combscript" folder with yourself.Now, in combscript you can export svg:<image.png>This will save "document.svg" to your downloads folder (at least in Chrome). Rename this file (so you can remember what it is).Now drag it into the combscript/combscriptsvg folder:<image.png>A corresponding pdf will automatically be created in the pdf folder which is directly laserable.(The automatic conversion is done by someone running the "watcher.coffee" script. It watches for changed files in the combscriptsvg folder and produces the corresponding pdf. I'll leave it running on my computer for the day, but you can also run it later if you need to. Directions are in the readme.txt.)On Fri, Jan 29, 2016 at 11:01 AM, Paula wrote:--Really Rough Schedule
11:20 Start
11:30 Intro
11:45 Brainstorm
12:00 Make! Perhaps set a schedule for laser cutter use?
Lunch
14:00 Dynamic Media has their weekly meeting
17:00 Check in to see if we want to share what we’re working on/ what we’ve made
COMBSCRIPT
Example file
https://www.dropbox.com/s/41it3ushdqfozpw/x%20joint.yaml?dl=0
Toby’s print.coffee
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hrofrn1nltmsrjy/print.coffee?dl=0
The one I edited which saves it to a SVG but hasn’t been tested yet because my new laptop is having problems
https://www.dropbox.com/s/efltccesgjfsot0/print_to_svg.coffee?dl=0
Useful Joints Article
http://makezine.com/projects/make-33/cnc-panel-joinery-2/
Upload PDF files here to send to laser cutter computer
https://www.dropbox.com/request/qWoKNN4bq47WZ0YUZIkv
123D Make: Slice up STL files and sometimes get them to fit
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