Thursday, February 19, 2015

This was as far as I had gotten into this particular project. I managed to finish off the circle, the rectangle, and triangle, but couldn't finish the star. I think the most challenging thing that I had accomplished was finshing the center point for the circle. I ended up finding it by dividing the height by two and then subtracting by the diameter and dividing that value by two. That gave me the point at which the circle ends. So from there I drew a line the length of the diameter and drew a circle from it. The rectangle was pretty easy because you didn't really have to calculate much of the distances. I still have the question as per how to finish the star. I was unable to complete it and I might have found out if I had more time. However, as a total, I was unable to finish it and do consider this my next challenge. I hope that by the end of the year, at the least, I can learn how to complete this, and the entire project with much more fluidity.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015


This was the "shelter" my partner Vijay and I built. We built with 30 toothpicks and gum drops. The main inspiration we had in this was the x-bracing that is used in buildings to protect from earthquakes. Above that we realized that the largest potential problem would be a loss of balance so we created side supports that can catch the shelter from falling completely if it were to fall.

1. Our primary shapes were triangles and squares.

2. 60.95 and 45 degrees were the angles of that were used in this project

3. 60.5 in^2 was the surface area and we would need around 60.5 in^2 of a material like cement or brick to cover the shelter

4. 15.625 in^2 insides was the interior surface area. it could potentially fit 30 people,

5. We took factors like the weather and environment into consideration as we tried to create a roof and x-braced the shelter to be less prone to destruction in the event of a natural disaster.

6. We could clearly see the form of the object being established through solving the issue with functionality. An example would be the x bracing and how we worked with triangles to have more stability in the actual structure.

Thursday, February 12, 2015

How to make a sphere

My question was how to make a sphere? Some things seemed easy enough, but a sphere almost seemed impossible. You can't extrude a circle because that creates a cylinder and nothing else came to mind. After this video i learned about how you can use a circle tool and revolve it. By doing so, you allow the circle to create a sphere.

This is the video I used.f
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv0HAUC8p6c

Also to lweanr from another friend, I used the help of my friend ashab. Ashab had managed to create a cylinder so I asked him how to make one. He lead me through the steps pf creating a triangle, and then revolving it. At the end of this project, I managed to lean how to make a sphere and a cylinder.0

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Form follows function

At first when I was thinking about what could be improved on in the world, I had a little bit of trouble. I couldn't think immediately of something that needed improving that wasn't already created. Then I realized that the place where I was sitting at could easily be upgraded. I realized that desks, the staple in every classroom, where not made for the student. These were drab things that we used on a daily basis, but it was not geared towards helping students. So my plan was to create a desk where students can have something to look forward to their studies. I was thinking of a white board desk that students can use to take notes and let their creativity flow. We have seen this technology in a white board notebook called letterforms. It would be an easier way for people to be enthusiastic about studies. I felt that the way to construct it would to have the whiteboard be at the top of the desk and then we could also have a scanning technology built into the desk to be able to copy down any notes taken into a digital format. This reminds me a lot of this dry erase notebook called letterforms that was created to serve this exact purpose.It is very similar to this product, but it is also very different in the sense that we can scan the surface, so it is no longer just a note taking device, but can also take it from being physical to digital. Now this is just in the preliminary stages. I do feel like there is a lot that can be improved on. Like It could be a much larger desk which would help with group projects, and so on.

Monday, February 2, 2015

Why is it important to model an idea before making a final prototype? This question arises an awful lot. I myself used to think," hey I'll just make it, that's easier." However after this project i recognize how difficult it is to actually execute a process beforehand so you know what to actually expect when you are testing your project. You can have a better understanding in what you are testing and on what you can improve on which helps you out a lot more than people think it does. I feel like my puzzle manages to have that,"oh!" feeling when people find out how to do it. At first I was unaware that my puzzle was difficult, but after I saw so many people try and always have this moment of understanding when I solved it for them really satisfied me. I felt like I had created something that was actually entertaining. If I could change something from my puzzle it would be to maybe make the puzzle a little more simple. I felt like "oh" moments are good, but having people get too fed up over it isn't either. There is a small happy medium between challenging and downright irritating and I feel like my puzzle might be leaning towards the irritating side.





Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Puzzle cube

To start with I had decided in my brainstorm that I have to create some sort of interlocking piece. I thought to myself, and decided that I would make two designs, one with and one without.

So this became my design with interlocking. You can see how this one has more interlocking pieces and is more dependent on each other liked the green piece and the orange piece.



























And this is the one without. As you can see, theses pieces are pretty much just disjoint a little and and each piece is much more independent. An example is the orange piece and how it is basically just two rows of orange blocks.




















This is the Isometric sketch where we get to see a more 3d perspective of the parts. I attempted to make them more cohesive by putting pieces next to each other which became a little hard to understand. You may also recognize that there are multiple scratched out areas, and these are just because the drawings were not drawn properly which was a fault on my side. I feel that if I had been more cautious, The iso sketch would have been easily identifiable
At this point I had decided which piece I wanted to build. I had decided the Interlocking one!! I chose this one because in the scheme of all things, the inter-lockable one would be much better to make because that way, the cube doesn't just fall apart. There is a chance that this may not happen in the other design also, but I wanted to confirm that this will stay together, so I chose the inter-lockable one
This is the partner piece that I built from my good friend Jake, I found how this piece was pretty easy to make and I realized that this should be a standard I follow. 





These are the parts I made on inventor. I found this quite difficult at first , but then making the pieces was a breeze! I expected it to be so much harder, but this ended up being my most favorite part of the entire project!

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Cube Quality Control

To accomplish our assignment/ job we have to make sure that our equipment is as quality as it can be.  To do this we have to use our dial caliper to measure out the length of our cubes. Down below, I have all my values

[ ] Cube 1-.764
[ ] Cube 2-0.76
[ ] Cube 3-0.756
[ ] 4-0.77
[ ] 5-0.748
[ ] 6-0.752
[ ] 7- 0.74
[ ] 8- 0.74 6
[ ] 9- 0.737
[ ] 10-  0.759
[ ] 11- 0. 75 4
[ ] 12- 0. 772
[ ] 13- 0 .7 46
[ ] 14- 0. 758
[ ] 15- 0.748
[ ] 16- 0 .7 61
[ ] 17-0.758
[ ] 18-0.77
[ ] 19-0.762
[ ] 20-0.734
[ ] 21-0.742
[ ] 22-0.744
[ ] 23-0.75
[ ] 24-0.732
[ ] 25-0.721
[ ] 26-0.736
[ ] 27-0.744
 My data seems to be not too distributed and very similar. I say this because every single cube falls among the 0.7