Ball State University’s i.M.A.D.E.
Tags: 3d Modeling, CASE, Fabrication, Rhino 3d, Student ProjectsThroughout the Spring semester of 2009 as well as this summer, CASE had the opportunity to collaborate with the students from Ball State University’s i.M.A.D.E (Center for digital fabrication) on their Inconvenient Studio. One of the more impressive parts about this program, and this group, is the breadth of work that they have been able to produce and to what level of definition. On our latest trip a couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to see photos of their latest project for an exhibition in Florence, Italy. We wanted to post this project as an example of how this program is bringing together design, technology, and fabrication to produce not only great work, but an innovative approach to design education.
Some of these guys are members of the designreform community so feel free to ask them questions.
Below, their description of the project:
“MorphoLuminesence is a kinetic ceiling prototype, originally described as a simple surface in Rhino. The surface was triangulated into panels or ”petals” using a combination of the PanelingTools plug-in and manual modeling based on a specific tessellation logic. “Morpho” consists of these kinetic petals, laser cut from white acrylic, which hang from stems of clear tubular acrylic with planar elbow joints. The acrylic tubes were laser cut using custom fabricated jigs to create angles and grooves along each piece. The compound joints of each petal were created using unique laser cut acrylic angles and pivoting model airplane hinges. The surface is actuated using monofilament attached to small, high torque servos. The servos are mounted to acrylic towers above the MDF top surface, providing maximum leverage. Variable value RGB LEDs, above the petal surface, are tuned across the visual spectrum to provide a wide variety of lighting effects.
The MDF soffit was modeled in Rhino as a network of the stems. Although the original form was a NURBS surface, the tooling patterns and g-code where generated using Mastercam. The preview modes allowed us to tweak the step sizes until we could achieve the right aesthetic. The ridges allowed material to be placed where it was needed to keep the petals stable and fixed. The top of the soffit became the circuit board for the LED’s and base for the servo towers.
A series of prototypes informed the shape and structure of the components that create the overall form. Acrylic panels were flexed to their breaking points, fishing line was stressed, and multiple materials were tested for the rigid top surface including, HDF, MDF, Paticleboard, and High Density Foam.
The surface reacts to people standing and moving beneath it, as Arduino micro-controllers are used to receive infrared sensor data and to control the position of the servos. The sensors detect speed and direction of people in relation to the piece. If a user stands still for a long enough period of time, the petals will retract into the completed surface, but once activated by human occupation, the piece opens and closes pods.”
Visit the i.M.A.D.E. website
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DesignReform.net by David Fano is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at designreform.net.
One thing i’d like to hear more about from this is how the team works… how many people were involved? how was the project structured? how did this fit into your class assignments? and how were you able to arrive at your final design? any input you can provide to that would be great… thanks guys.
The team of Adam Buente, Elizabeth Boone, and myself was formed in our spring studio (entitled “An Inconvenient Studio”), which was organized as a think tank, situating itself around technologies and physical computing in architecture.
Our professors provided some brief provocations and left it to us to set up our own projects, develop ideas and arguments, and create our own schedules. The goal was to take responsibility for our own self-directed education. There is more info about the studio and some of the early projects at http://i-m-a-d-e.org/?p=1382
With no boundaries or rubrics to situate ourselves within, our team chose a lighting design competition as a starting point because it provided predefined parameters. We also benefitted from the competition, earning 500 dollars from an innovation award, allowing a base fund to begin prototyping and building. More funds were raised from businesses around the area our team pursued including construction, architecture, and lighting design.
From previous visitors like Philip Beesley and CASE, we were introduced to many new aspects of physical computing and techniques in tectonics. Along with our own research, much of the knowledge we gained was through collaboration with professors within other disciplines at Ball State and outside professionals.
The project ended up unfinished by the end of the school year, leaving more testing/research of electronics and tectonics. The Institute for Digital Fabrication ended up helping fund the rest of the project’s completion. We were also fortunate to add another member to the team, Eric Brockmeyer, helping with redesign, fabrication, programming, and final assembly.
Generally much of design in architectural programs is only realized through concept. What we came to realize is that the conceptual design was a small fraction of our design process: It took two weeks to design and complete the competition, while we worked on its realization for over six months.
I was just curious as to where you purchased your pin hinges for the petals. I’m working on something where this could come in handy. If you wouldn’t mind sharing that information, I would love to know where you bought them. Thanks and really great project!
They are actually hinges for model airplane rudders. They work well because the plastic is strong and they can rotate 180 degrees.
http://www.greatplanes.com/accys/gpmq3950.html
http://www.robart.com/Hinge.aspx
I really like the fact that you had to deal with raising funds to make the project, congratulations on the competition.
The time comparison between conceptual design and the final product is also something that is typically left out of the studio. component definition to that level is rare to see… great work. was there any element that you had to change drastically due to not being able to find what you had originally imagined in concept?
The conceptual design and the resulting reality of the project are very similar. The design stage was balanced between ambitious speculation and practicality through self-driven, brainstorming reality checks. It is interesting for us to look back and say that nothing was lost or drastically changed from the concept, aside from the idea of a changing room. We benefitted from extensive availability of laser cutters and cnc router, allowing enough experimentation to get exactly what we wanted. The main unknowns during conceptual design were the compound angles, hinged joints, and electronic componentry. That was all researched post original design, with an understanding that we would be able to work these details out for the final product.
As a follow up, these guys were just published on ArchDaily as well… see link
http://www.archdaily.com/32651/works-from-imade/
[...] the ArchDaily story, view our post about the project, or view the i.M.A.D.E. website. Spread the [...]
[...] the ArchDaily story, view our post about the project, or view the i.M.A.D.E. [...]
[...] the ArchDaily story, view our post about the project, or view the i.M.A.D.E. [...]
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