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A15 - Wildcard: Textiles for Makers

Brief

  • Design and produce something with a digital process not covered in another assignment, documenting the requirements that your assignment meets, and including everything necessary to reproduce it. Possibilities include but are not limited to wildcard week examples.

xxx TODO HERO IMAGE

Textiles

Jaryd and I asked Claire if we could do something involving textiles (an often under-appreciated Maker skill). We got the tick of approval, where we could design a complex geometry that would be hard to hand-cut (to use the laser cutter instead). The laser cutting process would also self-seal the edges of any polymer based fabric.

My goal

One of the Possibilities for my hub and end video would be to make a wild-west-esque video. So props would help tell that story really well. I decided on making a vest for a scarecrow.

Digital design

Using OnShape I designed the final version (a cone with arm holes and the top chopped off (for the neck to go through)).

Then translated these variables onto a flat plane for laser cutting. Translating them was hard at first because I was doing it through equations, buuuut the OnShape measurement tool and adding datum planes saved a lot of time.

xxx TODO: Video of measuring the distance for arm holes

Choice of Materials

Claire was an invaluable resource for all things textiles, she recommended we use Muslin fabric, this would let us tune the shapes without using our good expensive fabric.

I used a polyester blend so get the self-sealing properties, with a stretchy faded look.

xxx TODO: photo of materials

Final result

After exporting the .dxf, tuning the laser profile for both materials I was left with a good result. The edges were sealed, but when pulling on the edge a lot (waaaay too much), it started to fray (not unexpected).

xxx final photo

FILES

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