Free Week/ Learning to use the Lathe

 This was actually my second attempt at the lathe. I rushed the process and did not allow to wood to become fully circular before starting to form my "vase". The wood did not respond as well as my first one, hence the less natural looking form. The end grain also would get caught on the tool because the block was uneven causing an un-smooth surface to form. That is why I burned the wood, to act as a natural stain and smooth the "vase". I learned much more from this one then my first attempt. 

 This was my first attempt at the lathe. I believe the form to be nicer than my second attempt, but I didn't learn as much from it. I let the wood design itself. During the process, if you are not perfectly level or smooth with the strokes of the tool, you take differing chunks of wood of the block. This is how I let the wood speak to me and tell me what it wanted to be. Some areas were more susceptible to more wood being taken away, which lead to the eventual final form.

Musical Instrument

 This is the main playing side with the face off. Here you can see the spline joints I used to hold the sides together and the modified finger joint I used to affix the face to the box. The modified finger joint adds an interesting look to the box as well as distinguishing it from the all the other sides.

 Here is the inside of the playing face. The different thicknesses of wood allows for different sounds to be produced once struck.

 The hand holes allow sound to escape as well producing a different sound for all the sides when struck, which allowed me to achieve my goal of having an instrument that is playable on all sides. The hand holes also lets the user know where to hold the instrument.

What lead me to my final design was the need to have a distinguished playing side. My earlier iterations were a simple box with varying thicknesses of each side. After many failed attempts I realized I couldn't have a successful instrument without focusing on having one playing surface and a clear way to play the instrument. However, I was able to achieve being able to play all sides through a happy accident. 

Surface Project

The prompt for this project was to create a surface. In discussing this project the idea of an elevation came up, and I took that idea and ran with it. I imagined a sweeping landscape with many different elevation changes. My first try at illustrating my idea was modeling with foam, I spent about 4 hours shaving away a little block of foam until I gathered some resemblance of what I wanted. Then I was told about the C & C machine. To use it, you needed an Rhino file of what you wanted. To create the landscape I took some basic solids and used the drape command to create a smooth, flowing surface. I decided wood would be a good medium because the grain and the laminated pieces of wood would grant what looked like elevation lines. 

Mapping

This was my final map for our mapping exercise. It depicts the amount of foliage along several paths on the way to Mish Mish from studio. The thicker the line, the greater amount of foliage. I learned that mapping does not have to be as cut and dry as a simple map that allows you to get from point A to point B. It can take on a a unique personality as many of the maps created did.

Composition

For the layout, I drew numerous widgets and scanned my drawings onto the computer, where I arranged them into a composition. The project challenged me with deciding where to place each drawn widget to create a pleasing layout. 

Surface Project

For the surface project, I used matte-board and plywood. I was able to experiment with form, connections, and lines. I used lasercamm to cut the sides of the cubes to ensure exact measurements. My original base for the cube structure was a blank 18x24 piece of paper. I returned to the project weeks after the pin up and created a base with lines intended to extend the ones that make up the cube form. 

Star Map

The first star map shows the constellations on a black and white layout.

The second star map shows the walking path one would take and the an ordered list of galactic sights they would see along the way. 

Final Week Project

Originally I inteded on drawing famous photographs in a cartoonish manner, but by accident I stumbled upon representing the photographs in more of a "screen print style", something I enjoyed more.

Maps

For my first map, I mapped all the seemingly drunk and seemingly sober people on a walk at 10PM on a saturday night. 

For the second map, I documented all the Obama/Romney memorabilia I saw on several different walks.

The final map shows the different age of 3 different "legs" of the trip to Mish Mish. The different colors represent Virginia Tech, the corp of cadets area, and downtown Blacksburg.

Maps

The site path of a person while walking from Cowgill Hall To Mish Mish. The site path ends when it is obstructed by an object such as a building/group of trees.

Final Surface

The next project was to turn our previous composition into a 3D surface. I created each individual object on Rhino and arranged them in the same way as my drawing.

I then used the drape command to create a 3D surface and created a negative mold which was cut on the CNC

After multiple attempts, the cast finally came out of the mold. I found that the smoother the surface of the mold, the easier the rockite released. It took multiple layers of polyurethane on the wood mold to get a smooth enough surface.

Lane Stadium Inspired Instrument

The site I chose was Lane Stadium.  For the acoustics of the the instrument, I focused on a bowl-shape and having the sound be produced from the sides. To play the instrument you press the metal flanges against the rockite.  The different holes in the flanges are intended to create an original sound for each individual flange.

Instrument

Composition

Chris provided a variety of widgets which we were assigned to draft two to four times in scale. After drafting  several views of 8-10 objects, we scanned them into Photoshop and compiled them to create a composition with our drawings. 

What I enjoyed about this project was learning to detach myself from trying to make something out of my drawings. In the beginning I kept arranging my drawings in accordance with the ridges like the insides of a clock. It was challenging but I learned to focus on the layering of the drawings, and what to and not to emphasize.

Maps from Cowgill to Mish Mish