Our first studio exercise for this class was to design and print building blocks. The purpose of this exercise was to familiarize ourselves with basic 3D solid modeling techniques using SketchUp and to produce our very first 3D print.
First, each student was given a simple wooden block and we were required to take measurements of the block and make a sketch of the block drawn to scale. Then, using the sketch as guidance we designed our blocks in 3D space using SketchUp. The designing of the simple wooden block was a pretty simple task as the shapes primarily required the drawing of a few straight lines and using the push/pull function to give the shape its third dimension.
The original wooden block, a 2D image of the designed block in SketchUp, and the actual printed block using the 3D designed SketchUp file are shown below.
For the second part of this assignment, we were required to convert our design files into components, share them using a shared library and create a digital structure combining other blocks that other students designed. We were allowed to use any number of blocks, unlimited copies of blocks and were free to scale up or down the sizes of the blocks to our liking. The front and back image of the structure I built is shown below.
The second part of this exercise was an enjoyable one and it was helpful in familiarizing myself with how to maneuver SketchUp. The most difficult part was getting a hang of moving objects in 3D design space and becoming proficient in successfully changing views to see where and how objects were positioned. Through this exercise I also learned of various convenient functions in SketchUp such as how the software will automatically sense that a user is trying to align certain objects and how it will suggest surfaces and points to lock said objects into place.