3D-Printed Chess Set : Degenerative Systems

Our last milestone project for the Object Design this semester was to create a type of chess set. Students where allowed to have total agency over how the design/models would appear.

We can see below is my take on the designs, I wanted to take it into a direction that talks about our Degenerative Economy under capitalism. According to Marjorie Kelly, "a Generative Economy is one that creates the conditions for life to flourish, an economy with a predisposition to be socially just and environmentally sustainable. In its current state all facets of modern society is exploitive and cannot be sustained because it requires natural resources with exponential needs based on growth hence the term Degenerative.

Starting from the left is my Pawn (Exploited Labor), Knight (Compulsive Consumerism ex: Fast Fashion), King ( Energy Industry/ Major Polluter), Queen (Land Management/ Real Estate), Rook (Habitual Consumerism ex: Starbucks Coffee), and Bishop (Media/Tech).

Chess pieces have distinct characteristics based on a Monarchic hierarchy. For example my version of the pawn is a living coin. Because under Degenerative Systems, the working class would always earn less than the labor they provide to owners. The pawn provides profit to the rulers because they are the first level of exploitation necessary keep the system in place.

My original design for this project was putting the symbols of our systems into pedestals. Because we seem to essentialize materialism and implementing a keen focus on the superficial.

I simply decided on a more cartoonish direction because honestly talking about this problem is incredibly depressing. Satirizing it instead would lead into some form of catharsis. Also I think they cute and simple.

Final 3d Prints: Most of the resemblances with the models transitioned well into the print. I did have issues on certain models like the Coffee cup(rook) on the left which I printed on its front side. and the Happy Meal(Queen) which had a thing McDonalds "M" sign which ended up peeling off when I removed the supports. The Bryan Cera the instructor kindly suggested splitting the label off and printing it separately which worked perfectly well.

Comments

OBDF310 Milestone Project 1: Stacked Slices

My current sliced model for this weeks blogpost. I wanted to test modelling an object in Rhino first and using the mesh as the starting point for the contour slices in grass hopper. I ended up experimenting on different extrusion depths and the vector direction for the slices. Modularity of grasshopper allows for rapid iteration and gives me a couple of choices to pick from. I decided on the vector slices along the y-axis which gave me a very simplified version of the bird but still recognizable. Rough model doesn't need to be detailed because the contour slices simplifies everything else.

Algorithmic Surface Modelling

This week surface morph animation and some extra stuff. Starting out with a divided curve I was able to use it determine points for circles and then using said circles to loft a structure. I then utilized the random numbers to offset the radius for each section in the loft and by utilizing "replace item" I was able to move a circle around the geometry. To show this variating animation without changing the seed values in the random numbers node. Bonus: Sending Grasshopper data via OSC/UPD to other programs I really wanted to use the program in conjunction with my main creative tools just to give me more reasoning to use grass hopper. You can utilize geometry in grass hopper and use them on other programs like MAX msp and Touch Designer for live visual effects or any other use cases. But as a caution try to re-mesh the models or simplify, because grasshopper uses a lot of data and sending them live can cause it to crash if the models are too complicated. Geometry used to C

OBDF 310 Milestone: Stacked Slices Laser cut Final

This week in my Object design class, we were able to finalize out designs for laser cutting slices. My penguin model has gone through a couple of design adjustments mostly to have a cleaner and readable structure. simplifying the model makes it easier to distinguish, spherical curves on the original brep reference doesn't seem to provide appealing slices so I decided to go with a more geometric form. Once processed through grass hopper I didn't have a need to include wings because the tapered form still translates to something that appears like a wing. On the left are the initial slices, the right is the cleaner side decided to mirror to create a more readable model. Above is the layout for laser cutting, I ended up layering the cut-outs manually because the grid method shown in last weeks class was quite troublesome. I just couldn't figure out how to pull of the grid placement on vector direction and didn't want to spend too much time confusing myself. (The penguin

Objects

Search This Blog