DIGITAL DESIGN + FABRICATION SM1, 2016 M3 JOURNAL -Section and Profile Jingyi Zhang 784195 Qianrong Li Tutor: Michelle Group Number:9
Introduction
After module 2, we got the basic waffle structure done with wavy polypropylene sheets designed to be inserted into the front “leg� of the sleeping pod. However, the first relatively completed prototype shows to be really unstable and too small for people to get in. And it's almost impossible to insert polypropylene sheets to the right place. In addition, due to the narrow edge of each panel, people still feel being slightly pricked. In response to that, further design work and prototype testing are conducted in module 3.
Digital model of the sleeping pod after module 2
Digital model of the sleeping pod after module 2 Back view
Digital model of the sleeping pod after module 2 Front view
Design development Developing effect: Disfiguration has been a core effect in our sleeping pod design to create a semi private enclosure. Previously in Module 2, we have utilised moire effect to induce distortion on facial features of the user. Yet, this attempt was unsuccessful as the wavy polypropylene panels could not allocate neatly to create the moire effect desired in our rhino model. Hence, our solution is to give up on moire effect and explore shattered mirror. That is, to adopt mirror to reflect parts of the environment or people passing by onto the front surface of the sleeping pod to prevent direct eye contact. This indicates that the sleeping person would like to rest without distraction yet still have a sense of belonging to the environment they are sleeping in.
Stability: The over width and thickness of the sleeping pod has increase to provide stability. Thicker and wider penal resist shear force hence it would be more self sustainable. In addition, interlocking slotting method is employed in order to produce a rigid waffle structure.
Comfort: Building up our aim to manufacture a comfortable sleeping pod, we developed on solutions to form soft edges. A part from using thicker material, we also considered introducing a rather bouncy layer onto the edge of the sleeping pod to further reduce hardness.
Design development + fabrication of Prototype V.2
In order to dissolve the hard but rigid characteristics of the sleeping pod and make it more comfortable, we come up with the idea to wrap each panel with knitting wool. Three ranges of colours are chosen at the beginning: green to blue; red to blue(rainbow); white to brown. After testing, we decide to use the green to blue range for all the panels in order to give a consistent appearance and avoid any chance to be too messy. The reason why we give up the rainbow colour range is that it includes too many red colours which gives people alarmed feeling and not suitable in the common sense for sleeping pod. The whitish wool thread looks good to highlight the contour of each panel. Different wrapping techniques are tested. But only one method is adapted,which is shown in the picture at the left top corner.
Testing result of blue to green colour range knitting wool.
Testing result of rainbow colour knitting wool.
Overall, thanks to the softness of the wool thread and its beautiful colour, this design has the potential to transfer our simple, very modernised sleeping pod into an oldfashioned and poetic one which can possibly reminds people of the quite countryside and maybe even their warm sweaters knitted by grandma.
Different wrapping method (We gave up this method at the end because its too complex and requires too much time.)
Testing result of white to brown colour range knitting wool.
Magnet joint:
The sleeping pod is designed to wear though the opening at the bottom. But due to the restrained interior space, it might be hard for people to put on. To solve that problem without change the basic geometry too much, we decide to use magnet. When people want extra room in order to put arms through the panel opening, those panels can be split at the bottom with extra force applied to resist magnetic force. But normally, the stability of those panels will not be compromised due to the strong attraction caused by magnet.
Rhino model adjustment:
We have adjusted the size of each horizontal panel in order to avoid any slots happening to be near the boundary, which helps to prevent the panel snapping. In addition, sharp corners are avoided by adjusting the boundary curve shape. Corners with obtuse angle make the wool thread wrapping process much easier. To a larger scale, we decided to narrow the depth of each vertical panel, which had been too wide, and also curved the front edge of vertical panels, taking the inspiration from water wave, in order to bring in movement and dynamic to the front area.
Edge softness: Given that we use knitting wool to soften the whole structure made by cardboard, the panel edge is still hard and uncomfortable to touch. Apart from thicken the cardboard we are using to provide a larger contact surface, two soft materials, including non-slip mat and pipe-cleaner, are glued to the edge in order to test the softness they could potentially achieve. Pipe cleaner: The fluffy feature and stunning white colour of pipe-cleaner is really good for our project. But the problem is that we intend to hide the edge softening material beneath the wrapping threads, which will reduce the fluffy property of pipe cleaner. Because all the fluff are pressed, it will actually end up to be as stiff as its metal axle. As a result, this material will only be applied to the bottom edge of each panel,which are initially left blank because of the horizontal thread wrapping direction.
Non-slip mat White pipe cleaner
Non-slip mat with one sticky surface: This material still functions well under the compression of wool threads. So we decide to apply this to most of the edges. But the sticky surface doesn't adhere very well to the edge surface. Extra glue is needed due to that reason. Apart from that, the mat strip tends to twist to either side of the panel a bit during the thread wrapping process. That's part of the reason why we choose corrugated card board as the basic material. Slightly pushing the mat strip a bit into the board itself, we are able to trap those mat strips into the chamber created by the two sheets of paper,which are sandwiching the corrugated paper to form this kind of corrugated cardboard. Downfall of non-slip mat: fails to adhere to the curved edge Solution of non-slip mat: applying glue does help to stick the mat nicely to the edge
Testing white pipe cleaner
Pipe cleaner wrapping around the bottom edge Downfall of non-slip mat: twist to one side of the panel during the thread wrapping process
Solution of non-slip mat: corrugated cardboard does help to stabilise the nonslip mat
Using corrugated cardboard: The material for our panel sections has been reconsidered as mount boards used in Module 2 could not achieve a stable frame. Thus we decided to use thicker material that is light weighted and able to maintain its shape.
Mount board used previously is 1.5 thick hence it flop around causing the sleeping pod to sway and collapse when there is no support from the inside is present
Where as, box board and corrugated cardboard are less flexible materials hence panels would not collapse to one side even when there is no inner support
Considering the two materials we are choosing from, there has been some hard decisions due to their advantages and concerns. The following juxtaposition depicts our hesitation. Corrugated cardboard is lighter in weight which may potentially be much more easier to wear and carry compare to box board realised that corrugated cardboard is easily bent, hence may not provide strong enough support when leaning on its surface. In addition, we still need to test if corrugated cardboard is suitable for laser cut or not, where as box board is readily confirmed for use Ultimately, after testing, corrugated cardboard is chosen as the strength is strong enough and is the best option for providing thickness and soft surface area.
Front decoration: Developing the front decoration from moire effect to geometric dissection we have replaced polypropylene with thread. Another practical reason for changing polypropylene to thread is that the opening of through joint could not allow the strip of curved polypropylene to pass through consecutive panels.
Fishing line was the first idea to thread through as it keeps the semitransparent property of polypropylene. However, the problem springs from the elasticity of the fishing line. As it require large amount to tension to become straight, the patter we desired is unable to form. As a result we considered to use wool thread instead of fishing line. Wool thread provide a uniform use of materiality that prevents decorations becoming too busy. However, our idea of placing mirror onto the gaps of threaded pattern is to a degree conflicting, as shiny surface does not match the woolly texture. Consequently we change from using wool thread to cotton thread that provide a smoother texture to accommodate the shiny surface of mirror shards.
In order to distort the facial features of the user and his external environment, mirror shards are applied to gaps of the front pattern. The purpose is to reflect parts of the surrounding include people passing by onto the front of the sleeping pod. As the user his head forward parts of his face exposed through the gaps will be covered by mirror with reflections of the surrounding.
After testing the arrangement of mirror pieces, we have decide to choose a more scattered pattern as discontinuance exhibit stronger distortion effect.
Joint size: Via experimenting on winding panels with wool thread, we acknowledged that the slot openings must accommodate thickness of wool thread, as additional thickness narrows down the actual opening. We have experimented on the depth of joint that allow stability while not damaging the wool thread pattern. Given that the thickness of corrugated cardboard is 3mm and wool thread is 0.5mm, experimented joints with 4mm opening and 4.5mm opening. The result and observation shows4mm provide a tighter joint without disrupting the wool pattern We also investigated the width of through joint for the cotton tread to travel through the front of our sleeping pod. The width of the cotton thread is 5mm. Considering the pattern we want to produce the cotton thread will go through the same opening more than once, hence we decided to have a rectangular hollow section rather than being circular. The opening of the through joint is 5mm by 3mm by 20m.
Prototype development In order to test whether corrugated cardboard can be cut by laser cut machine or not, we submitted 4 panel geometry to Fablab. Because the trail sample were cut really well,we decide to go with this material. Apart from that, we also test the joint size: 4mm or 4.5mm. Because the thickness of wool thread is unpredictable and the corrugated cardboard can somehow be compressed a little bit. It's better to test it in the really scale. One of the problem we encountered when we were making the laser cutting file is that, our vertical panel is so big that it exceeded the margin boundary. The solution we came up with is to cut the vertical panels into half so that they can fit to the laser cutting sheet very well and later on using masking tape to join the two part together. Tests have shown that the weakness joint doesn't really affect the structural stability. However, we didn't adapt this method, because according to Fablab staff, as long as the size of the geometry does not exceed the size of the material, they accept that no matter it penetrates into the margin or not.
Prototype optimisation
Traditional wrapping technique and pattern
The wrapping techniques were further developed at this stage. Even though we've tested the joint size before, it turned out that the joint of horizontal panels was just too small after wrapping the wool threads in the traditional way (knitting wool are perpendicular to the slot). Due to that reason, we decide to wrap this threads parallel to the slots. The detailed wrapping method is shown in picture at the right. In addition, we didn't expect that the actually size of our vertical panels is that big. The trouble caused by that is it will take too much to wrap them with thin threads in the way we used for those horizontal panels. To shorten the process, we decide to increase the spacing between each thread and also try to follow the contour of each panel rather than try hard to keep its horizontal orientation. The initial reason for this change is purely to speed the process. However,the benefit are much more than that. It brings diversity and changes to our rigid sleeping pod which is unexpectedly huge in size and also relatively heavy. In addition, because the spacing of vertical panels are very narrow , due to privacy reason, the less intense arrangement reduces the pressure imposed by the sleeping pod, which makes the user feel more comfortable . Lastly, in each panel, the contrast In thread density and also the gradual transition from dense area to sparse area also increases the visual attraction of the design. In addition, less glue were used for the final sleeping pod in order to prevent any hard surface caused by dried glue.
New wrapping technique and pattern for horizontal panels
New wrapping technique and pattern for vertical panels
Prototype optimisation Taking into the consideration of the rigid feature of the corrugated cardboard, we gave up the idea of using magnet, which needs extra force applied to the cardboard in order to resist the magnetic force, and is very likely to lead to the bending and other damaging of the board. We replace magnet we polypropylene sheets. Polypropylene are flexible which allow to be bent when people want extra room they want to put their arms into the sleeping pod.
Sleeping pod
Fabrication Sequence
PREPARATION OF HORIZONTAL PANELS
PREPERATION OF VERTICAL PANELS
ASSEMBAGE
Assembly Drawing
HORIZONTAL PANELS AT THE BACK
FACIAL COVER
HORIZONTAL PANELS AT THE FRONT
VERTICAL PANELS
2nd Skin