Studio Exercise 1: Building Blocks

NASA’s 3d printed Habitat Challenge at the 2015 NYC World Maker Faire inspired me to design a rotating space station model for the building blocks assignment. My block design contained 3 sections with arms reaching outward from a central column. In a working model, the arms would rotate along the central column to create artificial gravity for the space station.
To create the space station out of the individual blocks available in the 3dFall2015 warehouse, I used the scale, move and rotate tools. Rotating objects was tricky and I researched and learned how to use the rotate tool to evenly distribute the space station arms. I also used CTRL + Move and CTRL + Rotate to duplicate and move or duplicate and rotate individual sections. I highly suggest making sections of the space station into components or groups to more easily move, duplicate or rotate them. Frequently adjusting the camera view to make certain all blocks are properly located is crucial as well. I believe the space station could be more realistic and may use the follow me tool in the future to create the rotating wheel of the space station.

Individual building block:

MillicentBuildingBlock

Multiple-block model:

MillicentBuildingBlockHW_StructureofComponents2 MillicentBuildingBlockHW_StructureofComponentsv