3DD

On Mondays session we looked at the theme birthday gifts and created a group installation piece consisting of the birthday gifts we received years before.

I chose colourful pencils and to write my birthday list within a heart because I wanted there to be some kind of order, visually. The words on the outer rim of the heart represent items or things that I would have liked to have had for my birthday. The juxtaposition of the things I wanted with the things I got is shown through the lack of colour.

The next part was to use a scalpel and cut away at the white areas around the shape, to give it more flimsy qualities.

This is what my final outcome looked like when it stood on its own. By itself it doesn't create much of a lasting impact however combined with the other works would tie in everyone's styles together.

Against a colourful background and use of screen work, the bright colours bring out the text on the screen. We began to hang our works and noted the shadows that were left behind on the screens.

Here are some of the other works, it almost looks like a tangle of everyone's own pasts represented in different styles and designs.














Beneath the works 'shadow' like objects would lay below the hangings. These were additional items that would represent things people received for their birthdays. I chose a flower and heart for my final shadow object because they represent happy memories for me.

















                                                                                 
Our challenge on Tuesday was to create a durable structure using pasta sticks and a hot glue gun. Whilst being to hold 3 plastic balls. I found that this session tested on my ability to work with new materials such as pasta and hot glue to make something supportive.

I began with sticking a couple together in hopes it would strengthen it. The glue melted the pasta to the point it began to bend, the more I added and layered the messier it became and the harder it was to use.

I tried to overlap the melted sticks together to make something useful out of the trials. The materialistic qualities of the glue made the pasta very wispy and hard to glue anything over.

This is another trial error as I saw over glueing would definitely prove harder to create any kind of solid structure.

I decided to use thinner pasta sticks and less glue to overlap in order to create a net like structure. It ended up looking like the star of David.

The trick to holding the balls together was the glueing process, I needed have patience and hold the pasta long enough for the glue to harden, this process was accelerated by blowing air over it.

From a side angle, the balls create defined shadows in the background. To improve this shot I would have used an extra flash light to make the balls stand out.













Against the other structures, everyone's pasta buildings came out differently. This shows visually there are other ways to tackle the same task. There were people who created trays and others who built towers to keep from the balls touching.

Using paper as a web, the idea was for the object that was going to be dropped over our work, to test the structures durability.  The plan was the paper was going to lessen the impact of the drop and save the pasta structure.

A shadow was created from the paper hangings above.
















Wednesdays session was a short introduction to 3D machines, I was impressed by the variety of mediums that you could work with. From plastic , cotton to plaster.

Fridays session consisted of bridge building, we worked in a group to create a solid structure for a toy car to be able to travel over. The main materials used were bamboo, cardboard and masking tape.

Looking at the main features from famous bridges like the millennium bridge, we tried to replicate similar characteristics to make our one durable.

Such as the long bamboo sticks acted as weight support, on the millennium bridge the long wire metal sticks support the weight of thousands of people that could walk over.

The curved cardboard shape with masking tape to secure it allowed for multiple layers to be added. The outer flaps added as extra security for object to walk across (the toy car to drive across) without fear of falling (this is an extra feature to consider as well as how strong it is.)

A challenging part of the activity was listening to everyone's ideas and working together within a specific time frame to complete the set task.

What worked well was the variety of ideas people gave within the group, we had to work quickly and go with the best design idea as there was not enough time to physically create 3D plans of them all.

From a side view the bridge's inner workings can be seen. Like the millennium bridge a strong foundation has allowed for the cardboard to sit comfortably above.