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

Sheet Metal Vessel: Fabrication

I'm back from my half-month hiatus here on my blog, and with me I've brought something very special: photographs of my completed sheet metal vessel! Please, take a look below:

This has by far been the most challenging project in this course for me, and I had to overcome many obstacles to see it through to the end.  However, I am proud that I persevered and thankful that I had plenty of help along the way.

So, what's next for my work in this course?  First, our skull vehicle is partially printed; we don't have all the components finalized and printed quite yet, but I think it's looking great so far, and it's very cool to see the 3D printer work its magic!  Also on the horizon is our semester-end project - it looks as though it's very open-ended, so I'm excited to start thinking of what I might create for that.  I already have a few ideas in mind, but we'll have to wait and see if they work out... crossing my fingers!

Paige Ruka

Sheet Metal Vessel: Cardboard Design Check

This project was a wonderful little reminder that I seriously do NOT like using X-Acto knives... at all. Granted, I didn't cut myself, which is always a plus, but I never know how much pressure to apply and my cuts never go all the way through the cardboard on try one. Regardless, here's my cardboard design check for the sheet metal vessel:

I temporarily put paper clips on the vessel so it didn't fall flat.

I wasn't sure how to go about putting holes in the darn thing, and the paper fell off after I did my scoring because I didn't use enough glue, but I think this looks good enough to continue in sheet metal without any alterations!

Paige Ruka

P.S.: Here's a bonus photo of my cat and my project.

Virtual Vehicle: Finished Product

The skull vehicle has finally reached completion - what a joyous day! I've included plenty of screenshots from differing angles, so please, take a look:

These photos are all in perspective view and use Inventor's built-in "Warm Light" filter. My favorite screenshot would have to be the last one - it looks like the vehicle is taking flight.

The axle spikes that Amber created really give our vehicle an extra layer of depth in its design, and I feel that they are the perfect length in relation to the base. I'm really proud of the things we were able to do with this project, and soon, we'll get to see it printed in 3D. How cool is that?

Paige Ruka

Virtual Vehicle: Progress Report #6

I'm back at the Virtual Vehicle, and some new features have been added. Take a look below:

Little teeth at the front of the skull.

"Wing" at the back of the skull.

The six teeth and the "wing" are each their own, separate Autodesk parts, which connect to holes I've cut into the skull base. I feel that these additions are pretty straightforward, so I'll simply finish things up with a statement of what's to come.

My teammate Amber is working on finishing details for the tires and the ends of the axels. We'll combine our solo elements on Tuesday, meaning that Progress Report #7 will be the finished product. This project has been running for a long while and I'll be relieved to finally have it done after a lot of hard work and many hours put into it.

Paige Ruka

Sheet Metal Tabs and Fasteners

To prepare the final components needed to convert this piece from digital data to actual aluminum, I added tabs and holes to the star vessel at its seams.

The model, unfolded.

The model, folded and in perspective view.

There are five two-hole tabs connected to the base, and an additional five one-hole tabs connected to some of the outer edges. You can see that as I was working, I colored every other side of the star, so I didn't get confused as to which piece I was working on at any given time.

The only difficulty I had with this assignment is the slow, repetitive processes I went through.  Each of the two-hole tabs were created separately, so it took quite a while to draw, create a face, bend, and cut holes for each one. Luckily, I was smarter with the one-hole tabs: I only drew one myself, then made use of the circular pattern feature to copy the tab four additional times.  After that, creating bends and cutting holes through the blue faces was a breeze.

With this project complete, I can focus the rest of my week's CAD work on the Virtual Vehicle assignment. The critique went exceedingly well and the class seemed to enjoy our design, so we're excited to put the finishing touches on our skull. We plan to discuss how we'll divide up the remaining workload on Thursday, then work independently and merge our independent elements together before class next Tuesday.

Paige Ruka

Sheet Metal CAD Model

From paper to surface sketches to virtual sheet metal, this star vessel has come a long way!

Using the sheet metal options in Autodesk Inventor was a bit challenging at first, but as always, once I learned the "quirks" of the program, things seemed to get much easier.

Some more insight about my process: When I first attempted the bends and corner seams, I wanted to make it as similar to my paper model as I could, so I bent it in a way where the main star "base" would have two 5-segment walls coming off of it. The following is a visual to put more meaning to my words.

Something is amiss here...

Although I thought this would work in thinking through things in my head, there's a problem with this method: one of the five-segment sides is cutting right through the star when I unfold it! This simply wouldn't do.  I decided to try a new method - having five different 2-segment sides - and it worked out much better for me. Here's an unfolded version of the final result:

The final, working, unfolded sheet metal vessel.

Much better! If I draw a rectangle around the whole unfolded object, it's about 10.5 by 10.5 inches.

Finally I can say with utmost sincerity that I'm actually excited to continue on with this project. The pieces are falling into place, and I couldn't be more pleased!

Paige Ruka

P.S.: Progress on the Virtual Vehicle has been put on hold for the time being, as the due date of said project has been pushed back quite a bit. I believe my group and I are at a point with things where we'll be ready for working critique next Tuesday, and we will add finishing details to our piece after that critique takes place.

Virtual Vehicle: Progress Report #5

Autodesk Parts, assemble!

The assembly's looking really great, I think! Amber and I hope to work on some of the features I mentioned in my last post (teeth, wings) during class today to make the body look especially unique. We gave Henry the task of creating the tires, but since we've not gotten those from him yet, the current tires are simply placeholders. Again, I think we're on the right track to having things done on Thursday, which is a good feeling indeed.

One problem we seem to have, however, is making different parts of the skull have different "appearances" (example: we want the windows (the parts resembling eyes) to be black, but the program doesn't seem to want to comply with our wishes). Some assistance in-person to resolve this issue would be much appreciated.

Paige Ruka

Virtual Vehicle: Progress Report #4

After our last group meeting, Amber and I decided to move along with one of her designs - a vehicle that resembles a skull.  After working on it for a bit in the lab on Thursday, we had to leave due to the fact that another class was about to start.  Before we departed, I volunteered to work more on the body of the vehicle, so it would be closer to completion next Tuesday.

Long story short: I may have gotten a bit carried away.

Let's take a look:

The dotted lines around the skull-like vehicle body were the first things I drew, to make sure I did not exceed the max size of 4 x 2.5 x 2.5 inches. Then, I drew half of an ellipse, and rotated it 360 degrees around its center line to create the main part of the skull.

From there, it was a lot of just messing around with offset planes, extrusions, extruded cuts, and fillets. I attempted to do a few extrusions to curved surfaces (offset from the initial ellipse I created, for example) but it proved to be difficult to keep track of what's what in the sketch.  So, for the most part. I kept it simple and extruded to flat surfaces. I took a lot of creative liberties with the skull, but despite its lack of true realism, I hope my group mates will feel it is a good enough design to move forward with. It would break my heart to have done all this work, only to hear, "It's not good enough!"

Some things that might be added to the body, if we have enough time, are some teeth-like extrusions in the front and wings (we're talking car wings, not feather wings) in the back. I'd like to make the final decision as a group whether or not we'll add those features, so I'm holding off on modeling them for now.

As always, feedback in the comments is sincerely welcomed and appreciated! I think we're on the right track to being done on Thursday, especially if we are given work time for this project on Tuesday. We still need to create the tires, but once that's done, we can finalize the assembly for our vehicle and tweak the body to fit the wheels properly.

Paige Ruka