World is Flat, The 3D Printer Edition @worldisflatspr15 - Tumblr Blog

Looking Back and Next Steps

This class started some amazing research trajectories into 3D printing shoes, robotic extrusion, and concrete 3D printing. We are continuing parts of all three this summer and fall, so stay tuned for news from Melissa’s Introduction to Robotic Fabrication class and Design Thinking Studio in 3D Printing Shoes and Augmentations for the body! Also watch for these students, many of them now graduates of UVa, doing and making amazing things in the worlds of design, architecture, business, engineering, and more!

We also caught the eye of Autodesk, which sums up our work on 3D scanning to 3D printing of shoes quite nicely. Thank you Barb Zemlin and Autodesk for writing and publishing the article!

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/reality-computing/where-building-construction-meets-shoe-fabrication/ba-p/5762551

3D PRINTED SHOES

During the course of this semester, I developed multiple 3D printable shoe designs. I specifically focused on applying Rhinoceros and grasshopper software to create parametric shoe patterns. The initial designs with OESH focused on creating a fully printable shoe using a voronoi pattern. My group (Rebeca, Will, Sam, Ryan) and I wrote a grasshopper script and printed a voronoi shoe design in multiple materials, including nylon, TPU, and ABS. Throughout the second half of the semester, I wrote a second grasshopper script that designed a shoe heel using a 3D voronoi mesh pattern. The voronoi heel printed successfully at both half and full scale and is fully wearable.

Future goals are to analyze the shoe structure using the karamba plug-in for grasshopper. This will allow me to correct any weak stress points in the shoe and overall optimize the voronoi structure. A pair of shoes will be printed and (hopefully) worn to graduation!

1. What were the successes and failures, nay opportunities that you encountered when working on these final research projects?

The most surprising success of the shoe was its ability to hold weight. I did not expect the structure to be able to support my weight. Though the shoe was structurally sound as one unit, some of the small mesh ribbing broke off due to basic wear and tear.

2. What were your contributions to the final project? What were you able to accomplish in our short amount of time?

I was able to further develop my voronoi grasshopper definition so that it could be applied to a heel shape. I wrote the grasshopper definition so that it can be applied to any Brep shape (I actually used it for part of my studio project).

3. Where do you feel like this research is going? Is it worthwhile to continue?

I believe it is definitely worthwhile to continue. As stated above, I plan to optimize the shoe using karamba software. This will give me the opportunity to learn the software and create a better shoe heel.

4. What did you learn from the process you developed in this class? How might that inform how to develop further projects/ideation/prototypes for you in your field in the future?

I was able to apply topics I learned in other classes (Robin Dripp’s studio and grasshopper seminar) to the work I did in The World is Flat: 3D Printing Addition. It was exciting to create complex patterns and shapes digitally and then easily print these designs on the 3D printers. I hope to continue using grasshopper to create parametric models to print in the future.

5. What are you most proud of in this class? (You’ve done a lot! I am certainly proud of you all!)

I learned so much from this class. Though I’ve 3D printed before, it was helpful to have a class solely designated to 3D printing. I was able to print some pretty cool shoes and wear them, too!

--Katie Gallagher

Final Blog Post - Karim Habbab

Working with the concrete group, we went through 3 different iterations of extruders. The first being a system that uses air pressure, which turned out working the best with the concrete mix and equipment that we had. The second system used an auger, and the third used a combination of an auger and air pressure. We had problems in the last two iterations pertaining to the viscosity of the concrete and the size and build of the auger that we used (which I address in my final submission). We also tested different types of nozzles, each resulting in a different flow out of the extruder. We ended the semester by highlighting future plans for the concrete printer, which include getting a better auger and attaching in to the router, then having it follow a tool path.

-Karim Habbab

Over this semester we have tested 3 iterations of concrete extruders. None of these are ready to be mounted on the robot or router to print but through these iterations we have slowly come closer to realizing what our tool needs to be and reaching our goal. We’ve tried pushing the concrete out with air pressure and guiding it along with an auger. If we had more time I would like to try a different approach of pulling it out with a motorized pen-like nozzle.

The Concrete printing team started off at the Concrete labs at the Virginia Center Transport Innovation and Research (VCTIR), trying to test out concrete mixes for extrusion. We failed considerably at the beginning (extrusion was difficult) because our fiber choice was poor. We also put too much admixture into the mix, which made it flow too fast.

We decided to work with an air-pressure extrusion system for our first prototype system. We alternated between mixing at the school as well as at VCTIR but most of the materials were supplied generously from VTCIR. Our first few trials of extrusion were limited by the fact that the extrusion was handheld, limited in quantity, and probably extruded too much at a time considering the amounts we were working with. I also discovered that a short time after extrusion, the concrete was starting to crack, which was a problem.

I went back to the lab to try and change the mix so that it was able to flow better. This concrete mix in particular has very small grain sized aggregates, very low water/cementitious ratios, and very low water content in general, so the biggest problem was that the material was not hydrated enough during the mix unless we added a LOT of admixture. We decided that the admixture was going to have a problem anyway if initially the concrete mix was so dry (before adding admixtures, the mixer was essential mixing semi-damp powders together) So we added water. We also further sieved the sand to remove stray rocks that we found while extruding, which affected the consistency of the mix.

We tried the mix in the new auger system discussed in the other posts, and while I believe the mix worked (even though we didn’t add enough retarder and the concrete was already starting to set), the extrusion system wasn’t very cooperative, which yielded rather dissappointing results compared to our efforts.

We then tried combining the auger and the air-pressure system to see if the air was able to aid the concrete’s path through the extruder. This time, we mixed the concrete at our school and came into a few complications with the mixer there and I eventually had to mix everything by hand. It didn’t work out too well this time either, as the combined system was still unable to handle the stubborn viscosity of the concrete mix.

At the end of the day, we have a long way to go, and a few things to rethink and redesign, but we were able to learn a lot through our trials.

-Constance Tan

Attachable Orthotics

I was always interested in 3D printing in the medical field and how it can be used to benefit people. I started this project by 3D printing a personalized brace for my foot. I have planter’s fasciitis in my right heel and I have to sleep in a brace to keep the muscles in my foot from getting tight. After printing the brace that was specialized to my foot and in the end more comfortable than other 1 size fits all braces, I decided to try to tackle the issue of not having enough support in some of my favorite shoes. I had custom orthotic inserts made for my running shoes but I lacked the kind of support I needed in some of my other shoes, particularly flip flops and scandals. In order to achieve the same support I have in running shoes in sandals and flip flops, I scanned my orthotic inserts and created attachable arch support. I made several different iterations of the attachable orthotic looking at different modes of attaching it to the shoe. One thing that I would like to do in further this project is look at attaching it to the foot instead which would make it more versatile.

This was such a fun class, I really enjoyed working with other people and figuring out how to use a lot of new technologies. Definitely hope to continue to 3D print in the future!

-Tori Amato

I think understanding how the foot works and how to accommodate it through modeling was a success throughout the semester (from working with OESH to individual designs). Also having the workflow from 123D Catch, Meshmixer and Rhino was a complete success because many of us, including myself, were able to use all three programs to actually create a shoe. As for failures there were many but I think they were the most important parts! Obviously making a shoe from Rhino was difficult because I was so used to just working with straight lines and simple geometries. Adding and working off your own foot was a challenge and most of the time Rhino would not cooperate the way you wanted.

I think my contributions was learning more about the process and workflow of how a shoe comes together. Like I said in the previous question, learning to use the different programs and applying them to the final project was the best accomplishment I made. Also learning some easy but new things on Grasshopper was rewarding as well!

I do believe that this is an important research topic in the world of 3D printing. I agree with Becca McCharen and her outlook on fashion and how 3D printing can really change how we buy our clothes, where we get it from and also how we can start to have more control in what we wear. This could be from us tweaking a design we download online or changing a part of the shoe. This way the consumer begins to have the role of designer. Also shoes and clothes will forever be in our world so I believe people will never stop taking the opportunities to advance it or do something radical with it, like incorporating 3D printing.

I’m happy and proud to say I will leave this class less afraid of 3D printing. It is such a versatile tool and allows for so many types of projects. I love that just from our class we were able to split into three different groups to solve specific problems so I can see other issues that can be tackled with the help of 3D printing. I will definitely have 3D printing be an option for any design challenge I face in the future.

#3D Printed Shoes

My research topic -- Shoe as space

All things said and done, the shoe as space came out better than I thought that it would. The shoe ended up being semi wearable while still housing a compartment that the user could customize. The first picture shows my lovely foot with the sandal on. The second photo shows my planning process and how I came to the conclusion of this specific project (that part might not make sense as my mind doesn’t really make sense to me either). The third picture shows all of the attachments, including the two iterations to drop seeds as you walk.

I had a really great time exploring the capacities of 3D printing and Im really excited to move on to using this similar customizability for 3D printed prosthetics.

Thanks Melissa!

Carl

Robot Extrusion : Karl Iced a Cake!

The robot extrusion group was able to use an air pressure system with the use of simple tools, a drill press, in order to push material to end of the extruder nozzle.

My personal task was to develop the nozzle system. Through my research with paper pulp extrusion and testing iterations I was able to write a grasshopper definition that outputs a mesh ready for 3D printing. The definition requires the one element in Rhino in order to define the tip of the nozzle. The other parameters are controlled and can be edited in grasshopper and they pertain to the inner and outer diameter of the nozzle, and the heights of extrusion. The definition is also meant to produce nozzle tips that can then be applied to other bases modeled in Rhino. My goal was to bring forward the plug and chug idea of 3D printing.

This has been an amazing opportunity to work with technology that I would not have otherwise been exposed to or have been able to experiment with.

- Rebeca Sanchez

I tried several different icing recipes for the robot to extrude. For extrusion, we wanted the material to be viscous enough to hold a shape and show evidence of the angle and orientation it was extruded, but fluid enough to be able to move through the tubes with the amount of force the system could withstand. Here is the recipe we used at the final meeting of the minds:

Betty Crocker Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

3 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup butter or margarine, softened

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla

1 to 2 tablespoons milk

All ingredients blended together. For the final presentation of the semester, I dyed the icing teal, so that it would stand out. It was both delicious and the correct consistency.

The concrete group was given the task of designing and testing the proof of concepts of an concrete extruder that could eventually be put onto the cnc router. During our explorations we went through a few iterations. The first being a system using air pressure which is shown on the left of the diagram. This one attempt was successful at pushing and extruding the concrete out of the tube. But immediately we found a problem because we had to reload it with concrete after a few seconds of printing. So in the second iteration(center) we switched to an auger system. When we attempted this the concrete wouldn't feed into the system and wouldn't print. This is because the concrete wasn't viscous enough to just fill into the auger tube. So for the last iteration(right) we put the air pressurized tube onto the Y-tube that fed into the auger system. When we tested this the air pressure concrete was pushed through the auger system but to the top of the tube and wouldn't come back down for the whole tube wasn't augured. After all these iterations and tests I believe we are at a point to where next semesters class can take on and drastically improve the design with all the tests we've completed. After a few changes the extruder should work greatly and the big task will be attaching and programming the system.

- Ryan Hess

Course Reflection

What were the successes and failures, any opportunities that you encountered when working on these final research projects?

As a team, our main failure was probably starting late. If we had started earlier, we might have had a chance to fix some of the problems we saw towards the end (e.g. weak 3D printed parts, difficult with cleaning out the extruder, etc.).

That being said, I think our greatest success was laying down the groundwork for this project. We established a feasible method for extruding icing-like materials that future contributors can build off of.

What were your contributions to the final project?

I contributed to the extrusion reservoir and actuation of the reservoir. Additionally, I created a wiki for documenting our work for future contributors.

What were you able to accomplish in our short amount of time?

We created a working demo of the robot icing a spherical cake! We also began filling the wiki with information about our work.

Where do you feel like this research is going? Is it worthwhile to continue?

Definitely! I think the next step would be developing the translation circuitry for communication between the robot and the Arduino and also making more robust 3D-printed parts.

What did you learn from the process you developed in this class? How might that inform how to develop further projects/ideation/prototypes for you in your field in the future?

I learned that rapid prototyping of physical objects is much more viable than I originally thought. Before this class, my experience with 3D printing mainly consisted of shoddy, old Makerbots with low tolerances. In contrast, working with the Dimensions printers was a godsend—when you designed a part to be a certain dimension, it actually came out at that dimension!

Additionally, as much as I abhor proprietary software, I learned that in many cases it’s more efficient to use a tool you can get a lot done with, rather than the ideal tool. To put it more concretely, I didn’t like that the software backend for the robot used proprietary software such as Rhino and Grasshopper, however, we were able to prototype quickly because everyone on the team know how to use them.

What are you most proud of in this class? (You’ve done a lot! I am certainly proud of you all!)

I’m most proud of the fact that everyone on my team worked together to create a functional demo. Individually, none of us had much experience with building a custom extruder, but through the project we were able to combine our individual expertise to get the extruder working.

-Sam Prestwood

#swp2sf #reflection