Week 1 - Principles and practices. Project Management

Learn about Fab Labs, the Fab Network and the Fab Charter. Build a personal website. Begin planning and documenting your final project.

Build a personal website

I do not know much about web edition, so I decided to start from one made by a last year student (Juanjo Fernández) and make changes to my liking.
I used Dreamweaver because I knew it a little and I find it very useful to see code in the middle of the display and design in the other half.
This has allowed me to know what each command line means and get familiar with programming language and stylesheets.

Snapshot of the Dreamweaver´s divided interface while creating this page.

Plan and sketch a final project

This project requires to include as many abilities learned in the weekly assignments as possible.

I would like to start from a personal research project based on déployé stretchable mesh. And now I am interested in building déployé domes and control their movement through electronic devices. So that a flat surface made by concentrically articulated pieces becomes a dome made by hinged parts when stretched upward.

Déployé stretchable mesh dome made of paper. Lifted and flattened.

The control of this movement depends on the construction of the mechanism which activates the déployé dome:

The first way to lift the dome would be to use some mechanism that would push it up.
This would require the design of articulated pieces of the déployé dome on one side and the actuator mechanism on the other.
This special pieces would be manufactured in series and I think the molding would be the best way to get them.

Sketch of one way of lifting the dome.

Another way could be build it with shape memory materials such as Nitinol to receive stimulation to actuate the dome up or down.
This idea appeals to me more because both dome and actuator would be the same thing.
Besides this material is being used in the medical field and I would like to investigate it.

Sketch of another way of lifting the dome.

Also the design of the electronic actuator circuit is something that I know nothing about it today, so it will be a great challenge for me to solve it.