CAD
Process This Week:
Tasks This Week:
Below, I walk through some of the notes/screenshots that I have from my work this week and explain my thought process as I was completing my assignments.
Although I had some experience using CAD software before entering the class, my skills were limited and I had mostly used simple programs like tinkerCAD. Moving to a more advanced program like Onshape, I had some difficulties getting adjusted. One of the most important areas for that was using constraints. In the example above, and in the final sketches, having not only parametric design (see below), but also highly constrained design that kept each part of a sketch in the correct place was imperative for my project. Because I am hoping to create a musical instrument with a specific kind of scale measurement, having more knowledge of the constraints helped me to actually create those points of precision.
After getting a better handle on constraints in practice, I moved over to begin the design process, for a prototype for my final project. As seen above, I started by create a parametrically defined design for the shape of my midi controller shell, using a simple polygon and a revolve to create a potential shape. Although I did not end up doing directly with this design in the end, starting from the beginning with the goal of creating a parametrically defined shape was invaluable to my process as a whole. In my first iteration of parametric design, I made a minor, but instructive, mistake in trying to overdefine each of the angle and length measurements of my project instead of having one that remains constant. After fixing that issue to move forward, I ended up with the shape seen above as a starting point.
Specifically, I used the method for determining the fret sizes for a guitar to help determine a "fret" (read here as button) size for my midi controller. Because I grew up playing the guitar, I wanted to use a consistent scale "length" that mixes the feel between a guitar and a handpan - in order to maximize playability, comfort, and intuitivity. In this final version, there are button cutouts for each of the chromatic notes of Western style music (i.e. it is not microtonal). In creating this, I developed a function that determined the size of each button given the size of a desired first button and the relative size of the final button. This final (for this week) model of the handpan/Synestone gives me a good starting point to work from when we visit 3D printing later. I have created this model in a small scale, and using the parametric design, I should easily be able to scale it up to its full size when necessary. I plan, for now, to use plastic 3D print filament (PLA) to print this outer shell, and will hope to do some rapid prototyping as we approach 3D printing in the schedule.
In this week, two of the big problems that I faced were figuring out how to create 1. a plane on top of an already established sketch in Onshape and 2. how to design more effectively through variables (i.e. parametric design). Trial and error mostly solved both issues. However, two of the very helpful things that I learned along the way that I hope to implement moving forward, is that starting and planning ahead in small steps before implementing in Onshape/your CAD program is very (very) helpful. By taking smaller steps, each one becomes more manageable to commit to in Onshape and is further eased if there are physical drawings/writing to help aid this process (see here for my arbitrary notes/drawings for the week). The second major MAJOR!!!! piece of advice to myself and to others, is to just %&!@*& put your documentation into your website as you go. The first week was infinitely easier because I followed that. Instead now, I am trying to play catch up.
Finally this week, I was interested in pursuing a vector design of a logo for my final project. I have some background in using vector art programs before (namely illustrator). However, I wanted to challenge myself to work towards something new in using Affinity designer. At the PAST foundation, we use Affinity to print out vinyl stickers for our PILs (LINK). So, as a result, I wanted to create some kind of art that I could use to print in the same method. As a result, I designed/drew my own logo using the tools seen above in Affinity. There are two notes here: First, I think that I had a leg up in terms of learning a new vector art program because of my previous experiences. But more importantly, two, I learned the difference between a Raster (i.e. essentially pixel) vs. a Vector (i.e. a mathematical model).