Marcos Lopez LA2

Design Process

When working on this assignment it really felt like there was a wide range of opportunities that I could explore with this project. The examples that were given at the start were interesting in the fact that there was such a wide variety of what was possible. I really tried to find something that was visually interesting to me while still having some sort of uniqueness at least compared to the examples that we were shown. I was playing around with the parameters and the way we were able to position and move around the polygons or shapes we designed. I ended up making two polygons with one being the outside edge and one being an interior with a radius slightly smaller and height connected to a number slider. I then was able to make some pieces that looked like fountains to me. With a well in the center and a growing shape towering above that. I think that the designs I made were interesting and different enough. I actually didn’t like the designs when shelled but chose some that I was fond of. I also tried to use all of the transformation techniques that we looked at in class in some way. I used rotation, translation, and scale but I implemented them in a different way.

Images

Some images of the printing process.

The Original Vessel is my Trophy Vessel. It reminds me of a Trophy you would get for participation as a kid. The second Vessel Actually failed after about 6 hours of it printing correctly. It still has the general shape and idea, so I did not scrap it, but it is not as tall and does not have as strong of a rotation. The Third Vessel is My Chalice. I really like its design and I think it can be adapted into a fountain with minimal changes. I can just picture the water flowing around its rotation.

Reflection

I think the parametric design really allowed me to make precise and clean designs that I would never have been able to If I had placed the points and lines. I also think that using code to create the objects allows me to make several different kinds of objects very quickly and I can even make objects that I wouldn’t have been able to think of before.

I think the ability to create objects with code is so liberating as someone who is not the best at traditional building or design. I am able to use the skills that I have studied for and have practiced with to make something beautiful and interesting as well. It really is a godsend for someone who wants to be creative but is bad at building things.

Creative Agency

I think this project allowed for my creative side to show. Even when we had pretty simple procedures and code, I felt like I was still able to experiment and make something I like. I think in terms of the process of finalizing the vessels, I took a step-by-step process. I would start with the basics and change one thing. If I liked that, I would then make one other change and see if I liked that. I would repeat that a couple of times until I got to a point where, Either it became too complicated or unable to 3D print, or I liked it enough to finalize the object. I don’t think I can take authorship credit for this, however. I feel like I used a process to make something I liked but the process was already there. It’s like when you make a lightsaber at galaxy’s edge. Like yes, it is your lightsaber, but it was also part of a thing that was already made so that you can then make said lightsaber. I still really like it but I would never want to take too much credit.

Code URL

https://handandmachine.org/classes/computational_fabrication/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/MarcosLopezLA2.gh