Foxxo de Bloggo

Project # 6 - Planetary Coaster - Production Stage  I was inspired by another piece in class to explore planetary gears again and used this project as that opportunity. My goal was to create something fidget friendly that made the coaster interactive. By using this gear system I was able to make a fun coaster that is capable of turning whatever is placed on it simply by turning the gear wheel on any of the 4 sides.  I choose to go with mirrored, clear and white acrylics to create an internal and external expression relationship. The nature of the mirror allows the viewer to see the internal working mechanisms while also providing a reflection of the outside world at the same time. I used a combination of acrylic glue and 3M double sided tape to build this. I went with the tape to give a little extra clearance to allow the internal components to move more freely. (In the future, I would explore a different route as I'm not a huge fan of how much the parts can move that were adh...

 Project #5 - Planetary Coaster - Design Stage     This coaster design required me to step ahead of the learning curve a bit and discover how to use Grasshopper to create a planetary gear system that I could integrate to allow for the control of the spinning top plate.     I will be using a combination of clear and white acrylic to build as they maintain structure well and will minimize the risk of gear binding in operation. I choose white to hide the internal mechanisms to give it a cleaner finish while keeping the bottom clear so users could flip it over to see how it functions.     I intend to use acrylic rod and acrylic glue to assemble the pieces and fasten the appropriate layers to each other to allow the desired functionality to work. This project required the appropriate use of layers to help separate my components to make them easier to manipulate.

 Project #4 - Coaster Sketches     The images represent 12 different coaster design concepts that I went through in this exercise. I quite enjoyed looking at "Wrong Tool" style builds as I found making coasters that were ridiculous or a "gag gift" to be a great deal of fun.     Out of all of the designs my 3 favorite ones are as follows... 1) LED Coaster - This one is designed with engraved cast acrylic and side illuminated with a single RGB diode to allow the artwork to play through a rainbow of colors. 2) Shooter Game Coaster - This one is designed with a spring loaded mechanism to launch a small puck across the table, along with having a goal area for the puck to land in when shot by other people at the table. The idea with this was to take a fun play on the idea of a "talking stick." When an individual has finished sharing, they can shoot the puck towards whoever they want to have continue the conversation. (Ideally hitting the goal but not required.) ...

 Project #3 - Castle Refined This newer rendition focused on details within materials applied, how they are scaled to the objects and applying lighting learning to light the scene. Most of the parts came together intuitively with a bit of google required to figure out exactly how to do the things I wanted. It took a bit of trial and error to figure out how the lighting sources worked. The biggest issues I ran into with the project was workflow management as I'm used to edit timelines with softwares like Fusion. I bumped into a number of issues where I unintentionally edited something and had a headache of trying to fix it later. I also had certain assets that have become uneditable as a result of those errors leaving me with artifacts I still need to figure out. Check out the results of the progress below. Using Rectangle arrays to create windows. Playing with various lighting techniques for the scene. We have a combination of sunlight sources, a point light out the windows to cast...

Project 2 - Castle Concept Decided to go with a minimalist floating castle concept to build upon. Took time to create the platform, grounds, walkway, walls and main building. Worked on implementing class skills such as copy/move, lofting, and revolve.