Week 1 Review

(click images to enlarge)

We were tasked this week to analyze the illustration of our chosen flower for hotspots. A hotspot could mean several things; for us it meant a conjunction of structural and formal relationships that created an interior space. We focused on how a pinch of material from the stem creates a mass that acts as a counterweight to the rest of the structure of the orchid. Progressing away from the stem, the pinched material starts to delaminate, creating the petals. There is then another interesting rotation and pinch. Before the bottom petal unfurls completely from the back of the orchid, two side petals delaminate downward, trapping the sides of the bottom petal and creating the interior space.

This pinch-delaminate-pinch is the thing we are going to keep developing for our project. We must now tighten up the 3d model, get rid of the wiggles and put it together a little smarter so that we can modify it into something that can be vaccuum formed. Bearing that in mind, we have to reconfigure our model from surfaces that vary in thickness (although very minute, these variations in thickness seriously affect how the petal performs) into uniformly thick surfaces. We also will start to think about micro scale variations in these surfaces that can start to break up the surfaces or give extra support. Seams are difficult as well, so we will have to consider how sheets of plastic can connect with each other. We have been duly warned of the problems with raw edges of PETG plastic.