The bottle caps put me in a chess set frame of mind during which time I also made a completely cardboard set. The inspiration that set me making this set was to make one side be “positive” shapes and the other side “negative” shapes. I had to modify the board from the bottle cap set for this one, to make it larger. As a result, it no longer fit into the bed of the laser cutter, causing me to break it up into a modular board, something that I had considered for the bottle cap set as well. There are many more projects that are in the works. So stay tuned for updates.

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A very important subject that SSBx FabLab has been looking to explore is recycling, again with the goal to show how individuals can give a new life to things that would otherwise be destined to become scrap or waste. At lunch I saw a lot of bottle caps lying around and started to wonder what could I use those for. I decided to try to make a chess set by etching symbols for the pieces into the tops of the bottle caps. It has worked pretty well after a few iterations and some tweaking of the power of the laser cutter. I made the board for this set out of cardboard by etching the dark squares onto it. Now all I need is  many, many more bottle caps……..

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I have spent much of the last two weeks exploring things that transition from 2D to 3D. Recently I remembered just how cool balsa wood gliders were. I searched around our FabLab and found that we had some balsa wood stock. I set out to make a simple laser cut glider. Thus far I have taken it through two iterations although the first may actually fly better than the second. I found that a very good way to allow for selective weighting of the aircraft was to take two neodymium magnets and sandwich them across the nose of the aircraft (as pictured) the movement of the magnets allowing iterative experimentation of how changes in the center of mass of an airplane affects its flight.

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I saw a birdhouse over the weekend and decided to build one out of cardboard, again using press fit construction. The desire and motivation for these projects are to engage children and adults alike with a physical object, here a birdhouse. Hopefully, it will not only pull people in but also demonstrate the range of things that can be made turning 2D design into 3D construction. As with most of the projects I have completed thus far, I plan to make tutorials to guide people through their construction. If you are interested in the designs, immediately feel free to shoot me an email and I can send you the designs.

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From here I began to explore more ambitious projects which had similar themes for me. This was cardboard construction without glue. My next piece was a Newton’s Cradle constructed out of cardboard but using magnets instead of conventional steel balls.

The idea in this project was to explore two different physical phenomena in an engaging manner. I was hoping to demonstrate the conservation of momentum inherent in the workings of a Newton’s Cradle but also to demonstrate some things about the interaction between magnets, particularly what can be done with repulsive forces caused by the interaction between like magnetic charges (N-N or S-S). I took advantage of my knowledge of press fits in cardboard in this construction. (Video to come)

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My position with the SSBx FabLab falls somewhere between design resident and employee. I am working full time for the summer as an intern with the FabLab and doing a UROP (undergraduate research opportunities program) with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a collaboration between the Public Service Center (PSC) and the Media Lab. I will be around everyday working on design and fabrication. I am a rising senior in mechanical engineer studying at MIT.

Familiarization with FabLab Machinery:

I started work with SSBx at the beginning of June and have been settling in and familiarizing myself with the tools around me.

I started by exploring the the laser cutter and studying Google Sketch-Up and Adobe Illustrator. With this in mind I designed and fabricated a Batman Box (at first, as just a plain box. Then I added the Batman logo to it both as a vector cut and as a rastared etching.) 

During this project I realized there was a need for a systematic consideration of the type of interference fit that would be effective for cardboard. As a result I would up making test pieces and exploring how cardboard fits together with various geometries. I was then able to finish up the box project shortly there after.

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