So for this week I nearly made it to laser cutting in time (I'll be doing my cutting later today and hopefully will be assembling my model in the evening and if I finish I'll update this blog with photos)
So, I started off with slicing my model and assembling the parts using the definition we learned in class. I had to adjust it slightly to make it slice along the z axis and rotate the pieces the right direction, but that wasn't too difficult.
The problem was, that my model relies on holes which I'll be stringing the model together with and the definition decided that each of these holes wouldn't be part of the section but should be defined as separate pieces.
After looking over the definition I knew that I wasn't likely to be able to figure out how to fix this on my own, so I decided to reschedule my laser cutting to Monday morning and get some help from Jessica.
In the meantime, I tweaked my model to be the size I wanted, made the pieces a bit thinner as to fit on my sheet of acrylic (which I ended up changing my mind and going with insead of wood so that they would look more sleek), decreased overhangs that I knew wouldn't cut the way I wanted and figured out my optional spacing. I did also adjust the how the slices were placed in the F's of the off part a bit more then what can be seen in the gif just to make them a bit more uniform and more shapely.
When I got in to see Jessica advised me to bake the pieces and arrange them on a square, then use the make2d function in rhino. So, I did just that. I knew that my pieces would be hard to tell apart though, so I tried to arrange them in order and grouped with each letter. I also removed any slices that wouldn't intersect with the holes, but that was pretty much just some tops and bottoms of the O and C which I don't think will make a huge difference.
I then made them 2d and arranged them more closely on the square. Along with that I labeled them with the letter names (aside from the pieces I knew would go on the tops) so that if the pieces got mixed up I'd have an idea of where they should be. I'm not too worried about consistency on the labels as they should all be inside of the slices.
I'll be cutting them at 11:30 and am looking forward to spending the evening assembling the parts, as mentioned at the start I'll update this blog as soon as I have them put together.
Update!
I've printed and assembled the pieces. I ended up having trouble because the laser cutter didn't go the full way through my acrylic, so I ended up having to get another piece cut and that one worked out!
I took the pieces home and assembled them into this:
I'm not going to lie I'm not all that happy with the final product for these... They ended up far too heavy to be worn as earrings and if they don't sit directly against a wall the pieces that don't have two threads going through tend to twist out of place. But, it was a good experience in trying things out and it was interesting to try to take this process and use it to create a jewelry inspired object.
If I were to do this again I would definitely not use white acrylic, instead I might use something like felt in bright colours which would be lighter and accessible locally in the hues that I'd prefer. I'd also add more connection points between the pieces to allow movement without obscuring the letters quite as much.
Addition, after a week of thinking... Bryan gave me the idea to adapt this project into blinds with I'm very excited about, but I don't think I'll use the sliced model in the same way since it would require a lot of anchor points with the string. Instead I think that I'd cut the text into a solid coloured acrylic and then inlay a clear or coloured translucent acrylic into the holes. Then I would have a light source coming from behind through a faux window made from acrylic mounted on a fake wall that (in theory) would project the message from behind the blinds on a wall behind. I think I'd want it to either be motorized or interactive if possible as well so that the binds can open and shut hiding and then showing the message.
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