Thunder and Lightning

It is terribly stormy outside, and some moron put a table on my car. I do not feel like moving a table in this monsoon situation. So I am here at school dicking around with the project when I could be in bed. Well folks,

there's plenty to be dicked with.

So here's the thing: We ordered some cord-stops, like the ones on your fleece. You use them to pull the collar and waist nice and tight to keep out the chilly air. They were slated to serve as our "tension member adjustment devices." Clever plan...

The doodads are not strong enough. In an attempt to help them, we tried some knots, thought about some washers, etc. But eventually, we understood that the issue was this:

The thingamajigs were trying to counter the tension in order to stabilize forces, by applying their own meager force. It's not their fault, we put them in this position, it's just that the doohickeys are physically weak, and philosophically misplaced.

You see, the "tension member adjustment devices" should use the already existing tension as their operative force. A "passive mechanical device," if you will, something much more primitive (and therefore more advanced) than the spring-loaded widgets. The gadgets we ordered have adulterated the project, and whats more, they are ineffective.

They are impure- like a dirty church dress.

We are attempting to invent the "passive mechanical device"(PMD) that will serve as our "tension member adjustment device,"(TMAD). I have poured through many hitch knots, tackle knots, tried a prusik, etc.

What follows are images of us laying out and beginning to fold the monster last week, and then attempts at a PMD from tonight- in order to avoid the rain, and the table on my car.


We did come up with something that may work. It isn't any of these. Actually now that I mention it, it might need some more tweaking for good looks. Its better than the milkbone you see above, but maybe it could regain some the widgets tawdry charm with a hefty baroque update... hmm.

Anyway hopefully I can outlast the single remaining laser cutter operator. He is tenacious, but I sense that he is growing weak and sleepy-

Slowly Moving Forward

Each day we encounter some new problem, but each day we craft a new solution. The next day, we implement the solution. Soon I hope there will be no more problems-

Hopefully there is no catastrophic failure.

Math Errors and Midnight Labor

After cutting 300 or so pieces, we made a preliminary layout of our components. To be double-checky, we assembled a few panels. It was here that we discovered a minor oversight. Earlier in our exploration, we identified two triangles in parts of the pattern that actually joined and behaved as one. This was our first modification, we altered the order to include this larger triangle in place of the two small ones.


A hinge-width spacing throughout the pattern would create a scalar multiplier, not affecting the performance of the surface- this assumption was largely true. We neglected to enlarge that modified triangle by what would have been that constant, had it remained two small triangles. We made this discovery at around 1 am. See diagram.



We sulked for a few minutes.

We looked at each other the way people do when they find out that the male nurse they never liked anyway had convinced grandma to put him in the will.

We fixed it..................... hopefully.


The new piece can be seen next to the scale in the picture above our warp-speed repair shot.

Manufacturing Madness

We took out the architecture van to get materials the other day... this vehicle has about 30 thousand miles on the engine, and 400 thousand on the interior. We share it with the Florida center, whose long-haired minions throw canoes on its roof and venture out to map the bed of the river twice a week- so it has a sporty roof-rack. This roof rack was no help to us, neither for carrying materials nor being cool.

We have ordered an asinine quantity of strange things from obnoxious people, and settled in to a good 17 hours of laser cutting.

Some images follow- your guess is as good as ours what they mean-

Lazarus as Architectural Nightmare

No images this time, will upload them soon. Today we budgeted and tested. We subbed one material for another, so we can spend the saved money on more hinges, to make it BIGGER. This will also make it heavier- and its performance may suffer, no way of knowing before we build it.

This is going to be a marathon of cutting.

The stuff doesn't cut fast, either.

Test pieces look promising-


The thing, whatever it ends up as, will have none of the original delicacy of the origami. Sad, but also way more kick-ass. I mean kick-ass like burn-marks and bullet-holes.

Monstrous.

Like a creature....

...one that might not move for a hundred years and then one day start to stir, and local townspeople whisper in cafes of the coming tectonic maelstrom. It wobbles, creaking, to its feet like a rusted megatron, shaking off a century of silt and debris- its flaps moving up and down, in and out, faster as it begins to shed the grogginess of its ancient hibernation...

Amalgamated Mammalcraft

I'm sitting here thinking about the way this thing might end up, I figured it was worth mentioning. The thinking I mean. I imagine that it is somewhere between a delicate lunar greenhouse barn and a port-a-ledge. But also maybe like a doily. And possibly like a crab. Tough to say. Here are some of the things in my head as we consider what our work might yield:

Magic

While we toiled away at the waterbomb folding, The Lovely Miss Darci (as she shall henceforth be called) tried her hand at another youtube tutorial: the magic ball. This we also converted from crease pattern to cad linework, and proceeded to laser cut. The results were quite nice-






Upon seeing the handicraft rendered by The Lovely Miss Darci, I was reminded of a project I had seen a few months ago from a student at the Bartlett, check here:

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/emperors-castle.html

By the way, that is the best blog ever. The project is epic, and really a magical way to think about a thesis, plus the model and graphics are breathtaking.

Our interests are more mechanical-

We plan to make a tectonic structure using the principles in this fold. We have broken down the folded surface into its triangular elements, and have tracked down a "living hinge" to provide the folding quality.

Problem number one:

The hinges have no memory and very little directionality (pictures and links to the hinges later). The tessellation wants to unfold as the hinges strive to right themselves, returning to their flat or open state. We needed a counter-force. For this we devised a simple tension toggle and built a larger, component-based model. We are enjoying the primitive quality of the whole thing, and hoping that its eventual manifestation will, at first glance, appear somehow complex, but upon closer inspection reveal a relative simplicity and economy of means.