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

Surface CAD Model

Here, I have created a surface model of my refined paper vessel prototype.

The fact that I took measurements WHILE creating my paper model helped me to finish this project with ease.  I think it will actually be really cool to turn my star vessel into sheet metal.  I just have to get over my fear of using all those power tools in time... uh, wish me luck with that.

Paige Ruka

Virtual Vehicle: Progress Report #3

Today I devoted a bit of time to tinkering with Autodesk Inventor on my own and created a sort of body "prototype" - meaning it's likely not what we'll use in the end, but we might use some of the ideas that came from making it. Take a look!

Front View

Side View

For some reason, it kind of reminds me of the Fiery Blowhog enemies from the Pikmin series.  But maybe that's just me.  In fact, it's PROBABLY just me.  No matter.  I'll include a picture just in case you're curious.

Reference image of a Fiery Blowhog. Source: http://pikmin.wikia.com/wiki/Blowhog

It would be kind of cute to make one of these guys on wheels, wouldn't it? But that'll have to wait for another time.

Paige Ruka

Virtual Vehicle: Progress Report #2

Two posts in one day? Blasphemy! But, at the same time, a necessity: we're taking a step back by creating some sketches on paper. 

Amber's Sketches

Henry's Sketch

Paige's Sketches

We haven't decided yet as a group which design we want to pursue further, but we plan to meet again on Thursday having all tinkered with things in Autodesk Inventor on our own.  That way, we can see what works and what doesn't, and come closer to finalizing our ideas for the vehicle's design.  It may seem like we haven't made a whole lot of progress, but I feel this was a big step towards achieving our goals!

Paige Ruka

Virtual Vehicle: Progress Report #1

Original image uploaded by Amber Schroeder.

Progress on our group's Virtual Vehicle has finally begun! Amber and I first placed into the assembly four bearings, the front set and the back set connected by axels. However, we reached a snag in our progress: we want the faces of the bearings (see the two planes in yellow) to lie on the same, larger plane with the green outline of our car, but we are unsure of how to constrain things properly. Hopefully we will reach a solution soon, whether that be in class today or on our own before Thursday's class.

Paige Ruka

Refined Paper Vessel Prototype

This took me much longer than it should have, but I completed my refined paper vessel prototype!

Here it is: the star container.

A shot to show that there is a bit of a dip at each inner fold: it's not completely straight on top.

Upside-down view: it's hard to tell from the shadows, but only the tips of the star touch the cutting board.

I'm happy to report that I'm actually very pleased with how this turned out. I knew I wanted each of the 10 sides of the star to be the same length (2 inches, if you're curious) so I went into Autodesk Inventor and made this:

With this, I know the sides are all precisely 2 inches, and I have measurements for a tight box around the star for a more printer-friendly template. After poking around in GIMP, I was able to crop and scale the image to the correct dimensions for printing, and I ended up with this:

Nifty, right? Similarly, I made a template for the sides of the container also, and though it's not completely correct, it's pretty close. (I accidentally made the rectangle next to the long tab too skinny! It's 2 inches with the tab included. Whoops!)

In the end, it's still just a prototype, so it doesn't need to be perfect, and I think I made it work regardless. What do you think? I'd love to hear feedback in the comments. I figure if I translate this to sheet metal, it can be a cute way to store candy on our kitchen table at home. We always need good candy vessels in the Ruka household!

Paige Ruka

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P.S.: Unfortunately, I have not yet had a chance to officially meet up with my group for the Virtual Vehicle project, so please pardon my lack of blog posts in that regard. As soon as we have our first meeting - and if that's in class Tuesday, so be it - I will be posting regularly about our group's progress. Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding.