Final Project: Complete! (The Final Post)

My first post to this blog was on September 12th, 2015, just over three months ago. How far I've come along since then! Back then, I could barely draw a straight line in Inventor, let alone create a 3D object from scratch. But that's in the past; with a whole lot of practice since then and many hours spent working outside of class, I have finally completed my final project for CAD and Digital Fabrication. Please, take a look.

The final stand in all its glory.

Some members of my amiibo collection resting in the stand.

I am absolutely thrilled with how this piece turned out, and I cannot say "thank you" enough for all the help and support I was able to receive along the way. This piece looks beautiful in the photos and even better in person, and so much love and care went into this thing. It might not look so complicated, but seriously, the work load was insane! I am relieved to have this thing done, and I'm so proud of what I was able to do in this class. Now, I look to the future: I'll see you in the next class!

Sincerely,

Paige Ruka

Final Project: Vinyl Logo Designs

Just a quick update today: while I didn't design any of these logos myself, I was able to successfully convert images I found online of logos from some of my favorite games into vector format. Though what you'll see below are JPG images, they are saved separately as EPS files as well, which support the vector format.

While only six of these designs will be used on the final piece, I thought I'd go ahead and prep two extra just in case some of the designs are unable to be printed. I've never used the vinyl cutter before, so this should be a fun experience!

Paige Ruka

Final Project: Sanding and Spray Painting

Some great news to share: all six pieces of the base of the stand printed successfully, and they look exactly how I had hoped they would! Not only that, but the six discs meant for vinyl logos have been printed as well. Take a look!

In this picture, the two pieces on the ends are straight off the printer, with no changes being made. However, the four in the middle had been sanded completely at this point, so the surfaces are much smoother than they would be otherwise. Sanding these pieces was a lot of work, but it wasn't difficult by any means. It just took a long time - we're talking Tuesday through Friday here, with hours of sanding per day. That's a lot of sanding!

You can also see some light smudges on some of the pieces, especially directly underneath the "amiibo" logo. This is because I went in and filled in some of the gaps or cracks in the piece with epoxy, since the pieces just naturally cracked a bit on the printer due to their size.

After sanding the remaining two pieces of the base, and having sanded the discs as well, it was time for perhaps what has been one of my favorite parts of the process thus far - spray painting! I picked up an absolutely gorgeous shade of pink from the hardware store, and though it's not too different from the original color of the plastic, it covers up those epoxy smudges especially well.

The discs, which honestly looked super edible after their coat of spray paint.

The main pieces set out to dry.

Unfortunately, from spray painting, a few blemishes on the discs made themselves visible, so it's likely I'll either need to epoxy, sand and spray paint those discs again, or just straight up print some new ones.  Luckily, four of the six look great without need for any further sanding or repair work. The curved surfaces of the main stands may get another round of sanding as well, if time allows - but the flat edges look fantastic after having been sanded down.

With all that said and done, here's a checklist of what's left for me to do:

• Repair any discs that need repairing, be it by sanding the old pieces or reprinting and painting two new ones
• Possibly one more round of sanding on the curved surfaces of the base, if I think I've got the time to do it (right now I'm not so sure, but we'll see)
• A clear coat of paint on everything that will dry hard and hopefully prevent the pink paint from chipping away
• Prepare, print, and apply vinyl designs to the six discs
• Add threading to both the holes in the plastic and the ends of the metal rods which will hold the discs and the base together
• Add magnets to the bases so they can stick together with ease

That's still a long to-do list, but I believe it will be worth it in the end to make for a really fantastic piece. Wish me luck!

Paige Ruka

Final Project: Test Prints and Design Tweaks

It's hard to believe that the semester will be over in just two weeks - how time flies! It's really down to the wire in finishing the projects I have for this class and for others, so right now, I'm just trying to stay afloat. Luckily, a lot of progress has been made on my final project here that I'm happy to show off.

First and foremost: in order to print a 3D object, you need to make a 3D model, and I've done just that for the amiibo stand. Take a look:

Yes, the model's been recolored pink, and I am absolutely in love.

I've changed my mind from the initial design - having the half-circle's opening facing away from the viewer - to having the circle's opening face towards the viewer. I etched in my take on the "amiibo" logo by first creating a flat sketch, then creating an extruded cut to a surface offset from the inner curve. After creating the model and the etching, I split the model into six parts with more extruded cuts, then pieced everything back together in an assembly. Now, the pieces are set to each be printed individually with our 3D printers.

But that's not all I've done; I've even got a test print to show, and it's got something completely new attached to it.

That lollipop-looking piece in the back is going to be for vinyl designs. Since there are six pieces of the base total, I'll be making six different designs based on some of my favorite games and characters, and after cutting them from the vinyl, I'll be able to put them right on those lollipop circles. I received help in tapping both the circular lollipop disc and the base of the stand, so the metal rod shown in the photos easily screws in and out of both pieces. If all goes well, I can move the designs from base to base, depending on the setup I'm going for that day.

There are also the two holes in the side of the base meant for ceramic disc magnets I bought at Ace Hardware.  The magnets will hold the pieces of the base together without any need for permanent adhesive. This will be especially nice for storage, as I can stack the bases on top of each other rather than always needing to have everything connected.

Here is a picture of the test piece from above, along with 5 additional printed templates of the remaining base parts.  Unfortunately, I didn't include an object in my photo for scale, but the half-circle is about the size of a standard laptop computer, or perhaps slightly less.

That's all the updates I have for now - I wanted to include a few photos of the process of prepping the metal rods which connect the circular discs to the bases, but unfortunately I wasn't able to receive the photos (which was likely just some error with my email - so, my apologies!). I'll have to post those later - it's a weird process but very cool regardless! For now, I'll leave you with one final picture: one of my amiibo resting in the test print base.

Paige Ruka

Virtual Vehicle: Final Print

It's been a long time coming, but now I can finally post it: the final print of our virtual vehicle.

In case you hadn't noticed already, I usually like to include a photo with my hand visible to show the scale of the objects I create. As you can see, all four wheels are printed and attached, along with the axel spikes. The vehicle rolls around quite nicely, which goes to show that the wheels wound up being a perfect size (after some trial and error, of course).

You'll also notice a few things missing from the print; namely, the teeth and the piece at the back of the skull. As much as I would have liked to get those printed, it's very unlikely they'll ever be included. Time simply got the better of us, and now, with the end of the semester just around the corner, my main focus is to work on my final project, and that alone. I hope you enjoy the skull vehicle regardless.

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And now, since you've read this far, I'll provide an extra tidbit of information: final project test prints! Well, print. Singular. Just one, and it took three hours to print, but here it is:

Right now, it's a very simple mock-up of a piece of the stand, and a print that... sort of fell apart in the end, since I had to rush out of the Atelier with only a near-finished print in tow. But no matter! The most important piece is shown here; that is, that the amiibo figurines fit nicely into the circular cut. I actually measured something right and left enough clearance for once! Thank goodness.

Having this as a physical part has given me some new ideas to tweak my project, so don't be surprised if things look a bit different from my proposal. Hopefully these tweaks will provide me with a really great piece in the end, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Paige Ruka

Final Project Proposal: amiibo Stand

So here's a fun fact: anyone who's ever interacted with me for more than five minutes at a time probably knows that I am a huge Nintendo fan, and have been since I was just a little kid. Recently, I've been into collecting these little figurines Nintendo distributes called amiibo. They're super cute, and I just love the idea of having real-world manifestations of some of my favorite characters sitting on my desk, keeping me company.

But, the problem is, my desk is kind of small. I'd really love to have somewhere to display these little figurines that's a bit more special - perhaps someplace of my own creation? With that thought, my idea for my final project was born: a 3D printed stand for my amiibo to live on.

I was inspired by looking at the amiibo search tag on Thingiverse and seeing that others had made stands of some sort for their amiibo as well.  However, for the most part, I found these stands to be... underwhelming at best.  Some of them are kind of cool, sure, but I want to make something completely unique to me and my personal design tastes.

My current idea can be seen in two forms below (a sketch and a simple paper mock-up):

Sketch of the current project idea.

Simple paper mock-up showing where each of the nine amiibo would be able to sit.
(Please excuse my messy kitchen table!)

The piece would have a flat arc going around the edge, able to hold six amiibo.  In the center would be a winner's podium-type stand, able to hold an additional three amiibo (probably whichever are my favorites at the time). Ideally, I'd like this to be able to mount to the wall somehow, but I'll think more about how to do that once I've got my 3D model started.

I understand that this project will not be able to be printed in one piece, given the size limitations of our printers. However, I welcome the challenge of making this a multi-piece project, and really hope to create something that I'm proud to take home at the end of the semester.

Paige Ruka

Virtual Vehicle: Printing in Progress

Some good news: as I mentioned in my last post, printing of our skull vehicle is underway!  So far, we have the base of the vehicle (the actual skull) printed, and one wheel out of four has been printed as well.  A few redesigns happened to both the wheel and the spike capping off the axel to optimize them for printing, which will be apparent once all the components are printed and the vehicle is put together.

As it stands, the wheel we have is screwed into the base of the vehicle and rests against a washer so it is able to spin.  This is what we'll do for the other three wheels as well; however we still wanted to cap things off with the axel spike that Amber designed.  To do that, we had to expand the base of the spike, as well as cut a hole in it big enough to fit around the bolt attached to the wheel.

The base, the first wheel, and some test prints of the axel spike. 

A closer look at some of the prints, tested at different scales of the model.

An issue became apparent in the very first test print of the spike: at 100% scale, the hole in the spike was not big enough to fit around the bolt.  Bryan was able to help us fix this issue by printing tests at different scales to the original; after some experimentation, he concluded that printing the spike at 108% resulted the spike and the bolt being a perfect fit for each other.

More detailed pictures of the base will come when the vehicle is completely printed - you'll have to be patient with me just a bit longer for that!

Paige Ruka