IDEA DESCRIPTION:

PROCESS DESCRIPTION:

'United - we are stronger' can sum up what this week's assignment was about.

Wikipedia informs us: "Composite materials - are materials made from two or more constituent materials with significantly
different physical or chemical properties, that when combined, produce a material with characteristics
different from the individual components." The resulting new material could benefit from this 'collaboration',
becoming lighter, less expensive and stronger, if/when compared to traditional materials.

For my composites' experiment I decided to combine BURLAP(fibre) and EPOXY RESIN(matrix) to create a women's clutch.
(* clutch - Brit. a slim, flat handbag without handles or a strap.)

Continuing my 'stacking-layers' obsession, I set out to 'built' my clutch/3d-object through 'stacking' individual layers
of lasercut burlap (on top and around the mold), and securing them together with resin.

Deciding on the actual shape and design of the bag was a long and interesting process, as can be seen from the images
below. Realizing that I would need molds ('negative-space' and 'top-bottom') to build my construction around/on top of, I became fascinated with
the idea of using these molds to create 'patterns' on both sides of my clutch.





Gradually, I filtered down my 'possible-pattern' ideas to one of forming 'palindromes' on opposing sides of the bag, via using 'letter-columns',
that would go all the way through the height of the molds.

Choosing a 'good' palindrome was a mission of its own. In the end, I decided to 'keep it simple' and went for a 3-character combination of "AH!". This
combination, short and open to interpretation, proved to be ideal for 'play' - I further abstracted its message/meaning by turning "A" into a triangle,
and with that was able (hopefully) to turn LETTERS/CHARACTERS into SHAPES.




Upon lasercutting my first cardboard prototype, I realized that, in fact, there were more than 2 ways to read the bag's "AH!" palindrome.
We formed 4 SCENARIOS/MESSAGES of what the bag, and by extension its user can transmit - as you can see, they are, appropriately
'Friday-night-going-out' themed:























Tinkercad
laser files here AHHA_laser.pdf
mold for cnc is here AHHA_mold_for_cnc.pdf