I played with origami at the makerspace. I chose origami because I like to create my own stuff with different materials. Playing with origami is not my first time. Since young, I always fold papers whenever I’m bored. I like how origami can turn normal papers into animals, plants, or tools form. At the makerspace, I made a paper rose which a lot of people liked. I also made a small paper crane. I learned that when something that is created by one and others could not create, that thing will become very outstanding. My rose is a very good example. If given more time, I would like to play with one of the makey makey table. It seems very interesting.
I love little pets, especially hamsters. After visiting art supplies store and learning 3D printing in class, I grew the interests in making themed hamster house with 3D printing. Based my experience in PetCo store and viewing couple videos online, I realize that there are no many hamsters that has customized theme. They definitely have style like in the link of “how to make a bin cage” and of “hamster cage”. But as my personal preference, I’d like things with a theme or a main idea if you will. Just like the gloomy bears I love which combines violence and cuteness (I am not a violence person but I do like the confrontation between characters like those in movies and anime). So I have been thinking to make a system of designing different types of hamster houses with different themes that little pets lover would enjoy, and because 3D printing can do a lot on the details out of less complicated raw material the cost can be low and it can be much easier for non-designers or simply someone prefers finished products to get the hamster house they want. (However, for this part I haven’t yet examined the factors that determine the cost). Themes like forest, desserts, mountains, modern city, farms, islands, or even space can be possible to the making of hamster house with fun objects like barns, mansions, tree houses, caves, tunnels, the Moon, you name it. Also, because the internet gives us place to share our thinking on designing hamster houses, we can explore new friends who share the same interests and form communities to tie us all around the world. And for another personal purpose, I want more people to adopt little pet as they are less complicated to handle and a good company to be with, that is, more loves. Overall, this idea can bring more interesting exploration on the development of customized pet houses and perhaps possibly expand the market or open one.
It surprises me when I learn that the class would allow me to form 2D digital images to a touchable 3D object by using the 3D printers as my original expectation to the class is just purely computer programming in three dimensions. Then I get interested in the way everything works out nicely from “bits” to “atoms”. A special encounter in this class is the collaboration with a marketing class which I don’t understand how it can work out until we actually get along as a task group. I learned that many companies now is using 3D printers as their production tool and how the invention of 3D printers brought up a whole new market to the business world and a “new land” for the designers. So far, I get to learn how to use SketchUp, to find out the “needs” in the market, and how to use the powerful internet to advance my designs. One major problem I faced during the class is that I still can’t understand how my design can make money. I am positive that I can create things better and better but how exactly can my design fulfill the best need in the market. This critical appraisal keeps running in my head as I doing every project which sometimes makes me exhausted and can lead to confusion. However, I consider myself lucky because I have lots of experiences on making complicated things such as cross-stitching which builds up patient and concentration on doing project after all the practices I have had on my own. I believe I can help my group to go through any time consuming process that is necessary for our project to be a great one.
First, I just pulled out any shapes from 3D warehouse. Then, I put the shapes together and built
them up. I had to move around the screen many times in other to assembles the shapes together. The challenge that I faced was putting the shapes onto the place I intended. I had to turn the shape around, and made sure that I have the angle that I wanted. Moving the shapes around was also a challenge. I had to turn the screen every time I made slight changes. It took a lot of time and effort to make the precision. I had a weird shape that I couldn’t even name it. My creation was not significant at all.