ucsd-compfab2

Midterm Project: Mass Production

Description

This project is about using digital fabrication together with traditional fabrication methods (vacuum-forming, mold-making, etc.) to produce a set of objects. The idea is to leverage the digital fabrication (CNC router or 3d printer) together with traditional fabrication techniques to “scale up” your production from single outputs to a series of objects. You should think about modularity, series/serial art, or kits of parts that can fit together to form new objects.

See the references below for some examples. The concept is open-ended, but you will need to submit a written proposal for your project. (see proposal below)

For this assignment your choice of 3d design software and choice of method is open to you. You can use additive or subtractive manufacturing. You can use mold-making, vacuum-forming, stamps, or some other kind of “replication”.


Proposal

You will submit a two paragraph proposal for your idea addressing the following questions below. The first paragraph should describe how you are choosing to approach the mass production prompt and get us excited for the concept. The second paragraph will address the logistics of your project and how you will produce and document the result.

Please include any sketches or images that help illustrate your idea.

This written description will be submitted online to Canvas by Monday, January 27 End of Day.

Deliverables

  1. Proposal:
    • Written proposal submitted to Canvas.
  2. Project 2 Submission:
    • Add the following to your digital sketchbook and submit:
      • Written Project Description (update your written proposal once you are done with the project, this is your project description)
      • Documentation of 3d modeling (rhino captures)
      • Documentation of final object (photographs)
      • Documentation of process (including analog process)
      • submit as a PDF to Canvas
    • Upload Rhino Models (.3dm) to Canvas
    • Upload Printable file (.stl) to Canvas
  3. Critique:
    • Present both your Object and your documentation for Critique in three weeks. (2/11)

Canvas submission DUE Tuesday 2/11 End of Day (11:59) https://canvas.ucsd.edu/courses/62889/assignments/910171

References

Artworks

Jesse Colin Jackson Marching Cubes

Matt Hope Untitled (1998)

Recurring forms & themes. 1998 I filled the Winchester campus with spiked sculptures. Manufactured to such a volume they created a cloud or visual field, rearranged by the public & carried away like pollen by drunken students, taking the artwork into town

Marcel Broodthaers Industrial Poems (1968-72)

“These plaques are fabricated like waffles, you know”, said Marcel Broodthaers of the plastic plaques he produced between 1968 and 1972, and which continued his work around the effects of publicity and mass media on language and visual communication. (read more)

Lee Bonticou Untitled Fish (1969)

Bontecou was best known for the sculptures she created in 1959 and the 1960s, which challenged artistic conventions of both materials and presentation by hanging on the wall. They consist of welded steel frames covered with recycled canvas and industrial materials (such as conveyor belts or mail sacks) and other found objects. (wikipedia)

Donald Judd Untitled (1970)

Sol Lewitt 9 Three-Part Variations on Three Different Kinds of Cubes (1967-71)

Golan Levin and Shawn Sims Free Universal Construction Toolkit (2012)

The free Universal Construction Kit, developed by Golan Levin and Shawn Sims at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, is a matrix of nearly 80 adapter bricks that enable complete interoperability between ten popular children’s construction toys. For example, By allowing any piece to join to any other, the Kit encourages totally new forms of dialog between otherwise closed systems — enabling radically hybrid constructive play, the creation of previously impossible designs, and ultimately, more creative opportunities for kids. As with other grassroots interoperability remedies, the Universal Construction Kit implements proprietary protocols in order to provide a public service unmet — or unmeetable — by commercial interests.

Above: a cube and its greeble version; Below: greeble effects on a Lego Spaceship

Greebles, also greeblies (singular: greebly),[1] or “nurnies”, are parts harvested from plastic modeling kits to be applied to an original model as a detail element. The practice of using parts in this manner is called “kitbashing”.

The term “greeblies” was first used by effects artists at Industrial Light & Magic in the 1970s to refer to small details added to models. According to model designer and fabricator Adam Savage, George Lucas, Industrial Light & Magic’s founder, coined the term “greeblies”.

Ron Thornton is widely believed to have coined the term “nurnies” referring to CGI technical detail that his company Foundation Imaging produced for the Babylon 5 series, while the model-making team of 2001: A Space Odyssey referred to them as “wiggets”. wikipedia

Adam Savage’s One Day Builds: Kit-Bashing and Scratch-Building (youtube)

ILM model makers adding model kit greeblies to the original, three foot diameter Millennium Falcon model. Below is a close up of the six foot Star Destroyer model replant with thousands of model part greeblies.

Joseph Beuys Multiples

Readings

Eli Whitney and the idea of Interchangeable Parts.

“During the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, machines took over most of the manufacturing work from men, and factories replaced craftsmen’s workshops. The event that laid the groundwork for this monumental change was the introduction of interchangeable parts, or pre-manufactured parts that were for all practical purposes identical, into the firearms industry. Interchangeable parts, popularized in America when Eli Whitney used them to assemble muskets in the first years of the 19th century, allowed relatively unskilled workers to produce large numbers of weapons quickly and at lower cost, and made repair and replacement of parts infinitely easier.”(read more)