puzzling

[creating a 3D pressfit structure while coaxing magic from the cutting tools]

simultaneously inspired and intimidated after wednesday's tutorial on the shop tools. kind of wished i had a waterjet cutter of my own that i could play with all day in my room, but alas, had to arrange time in the lab, which ended up a tad troublesome because of weekend access coordination. hopefully i'll be alright to work tomorrow morning on this...

i considered the materials at hand, and thought about using the colored acrylic to create cool 3D glasses that really were red and blue lenses popped into clear frames. designed a mod-squarish one [6" across, hope they fit on a face!], and then thought it might be cute to create a cat-eye one. [honestly, have you ever seen a jackie-o frame or a rhinestone cat-eye on a pair of 3D glasses?] this was my chance to glamourously revolutionize the 3D glasses image and industry. the joints at the temple are where the pieces should snap together. time will tell if the nose and earpieces will fit comfortably.

for a bigger idea i wanted to create a lamp using the translucent material as an elegant light diffuser. the geometrics were inspired by
jörg cordon cube lamp and yoko 3-tier lantern. i used boxmaker to create the three tiers, and designed snap-holes to fit the layers together. a small opening at the top houses the lightbulb cord, in which the pendant lamp may be hung from the ceiling.


coreldraw files:
glasses
lamp.1.1
lamp.1.2
lamp.2
lamp.3

the beginning

[thinking of making anything that does anything...]

very much interested in creating interactive architectural spaces [homes, galleries, transport infrastructure] or adaptive objects that would faciliate dialogue between user and environment. my background is in applied math and interactive design, but further reaches in merging technology and architecture provides my focus.

some initial ideas... a modular series of communicative furniture; walls that were easily moved or modified for ultimate house configuration control; chopsticks as input + output interface in the kitchen; a bed that would measure sleep and breathing patterns during the night.

settled on a dining room table that automatically moved place settings to their correct locations, depending on the optimal configuration determined by the size and shape of the table + number of places being set. [inspiration: the orderly, entertaining dishware of disney's beauty and the beast.]

had a horrific experience working with blender. found the GUI completely bewildering; could never figure out which menu i needed to tweak any given parameter. i had the user manual handy but the cryptic abbreviations, nonexistent undo command, and tiny context-ambiguous buttons did me in. [not the mention the completely non-intuitive mouse button clicks and keyboard shortcuts...] the utter lack of control i felt over the program almost brought me to tears. you can view uber-embarassing attempt at table rendering here. i foresee myself using another program --most likely 3d studio max-- for future projects necessitating 3d rendering.

however, i feel much more at home with flash. made a quick little demo showing how the table automatically sets for four people. when the size of the table changes (by placing another table next to it), the optimal configuration shifts to accomodate. the standalone shockwave file can be viewed by clicking on the image. [i'm particularly proud of the color scheme.]