Working with Chance - Shifted Perspective

After thinking about what we have been discussing indeterminacy and working in chance in my conceptual strategies class, I decided to apply it to my independent studies class as well.

In 3D printing, a lot of variables are left to chance. There is no guarantee that your print will be successful. If you print the same object 1,000 times, there are any number of things that will effect the outcome. Ambient temperature, material, hot end temperatures, computer issues, hardware issues, and more can change the outcome of your print.

Case in point:

This is an 18 gallon tote filled with failed prints (going back about a year - there are more that have been thrown away or are in other boxes as well). Some failed due to equipment failure. Some failed due to material failure. Some of them we have no clue as to why they failed. 

This box is intended to be run through a "filabot" style machine to reclaim the expended filament. Mind-2-Matter and LaserGnomes try to be as green as possible, so reclaiming spent filament is inline with our  business plans. I figured in the meantime, I could do a bit of reclamation myself. 

I spent some time digging through the box to create a sculpture from failed and discarded prints. Since we design and print a myriad of things from engineering parts to organic shapes, it was an interesting melange of components to choose from. 

We had a number of MegaFire and SlugFire shells that failed for various reasons or were made prior to additional revisions that lead to our finished retail ready products for NERF blasters.  We also had a number of failed flowers from another project that we undertook for Valentines Day. 

Obviously it's time to get a larger photo tent :)

Shifted Perspective

Shifted Perspective

Shifted Perspective

The Gnomery (Gnome Sweet Gnome)

I haven't forgotten about my reviews of 3D modeling software. I really haven't.

But it's been quite exciting around here nonetheless.

The Gnomery is moving. We picked up keys and started moving furniture in today!

Post by LaserGnomes

I spent much of yesterday working with ComposiMold, which I had come across at MakerFaire earlier this year. It's a reusable molding compound for making a variety of molds (including 2 part, push molds and more). It comes in a variety of formulations, including FC, or food contact.

I ordered my ComposiMold through Amazon and it arrived in 2 days as Prime Shipping usually does (I say usually because I had one item show up like 5 months later after a replacement had already been sent out).

Unfortunately, the top of the container was contaminated with mold!

I was totally bummed and reached out to ComposiMold on Facebook. Granted it was like midnight when I posted the pictures, I didn't really expect anything to happen right away.

Well, when I got up the next morning, I had two responses to my post and a separate email from ComposiMold. They apologized profusely and have issued a replacement AND refunding my original purchase price in order to make things right.

Later in the day, I even received a voicemail from Sean at ComposiMold apologizing for the situation.

Even though my initial experience was less than stellar, they have worked really hard to make it right. It is really rare to find good customer service (let alone any customer service) these days, it was awesome to have a company be so responsive to a problem.

I can't post any pictures of the project since it's Christmas and all (don't want to give away the goods!). I'll post pictures once I've given the gifts.

We picked up some furniture from Moving Sale (our local second hand shop), including a super sweet whiteboard set up! Unfortunately, it was about 5 pm when Rod got into town with the kiln hoods so traffic was horrendous getting out of the city. I think it took more than an hour to get there (The ride home took less than 20 minutes without traffic).

Justin opening the door with our key for the first time!

Our spot. The room is about 8k sqft and we have an area about 18' x 34' with room for expansion.

I can't tell you how exciting this is. A year ago, we were getting our 3D printer. We had a dream to put it to work for us. We didn't know how we were going to do it, but that was the plan. We've had our ups and downs with the printer itself. In fact, take a look at my first post, Type A Machines Series 1, it was quite the learning experience.

A photo from my first blog post about 3D printing. Our failed print graveyard. It got larger, much larger over the last year. 

Today we are setting up our future. We had an idea and we've stuck it out. We have gone from the above results to print on demand fulfillment, including 3D scanning and metal casting. Some didn't have faith in our dream but we did and now it is paying off. My husband's perseverance through this project has been nothing short of amaze (and yes, I meant to type amaze).

Sometimes it has been nerve wracking. My poor husband stays up all night working. I have felt tremendous guilt for being busy with an outside job and school, but we've pressed on. Big things are happening and I'm filled with gratitude to be a part of it.

So much to do!

And so little time!

We went to check out the new facility in San Leandro today, which is BEYOND exciting!

I'm trying to figure out school for next semester, which is sort of frustrating. SFSU still hasn't requested transcripts, so I'm not entirely certain what is transferrable from AAU. I know what transferred from Los Rios Community College, so that helps a bit, but some of the core classes I have no idea if I actually need to take them or not. 

I'm going to go down to campus tomorrow to pay tuition and see if I can get together with an adviser or at least someone in admissions/records to help me out. I have a rough plan, but I'd rather have it taken care of so it's one less thing to worry about.

With checking out our new space today, it's really coming at us fast. It's exciting and scary at the same time.

I have orientation for school on Saturday, but I would like to have an idea of what my schedule will be like so I can figure out where/when I can be of use when we start kicking into gear. I'm a planner a lot of the time. I like to have an idea what is going on.

I usually have classes registered for the second they are available, but my lack of readily available immunization records prevented that. I'm 34. It's not easy finding records from shots I got when I was like 7. My pediatrician went out of business ages ago.

Instead, I had to pay $100 to have a blood test performed to prove I had my MMR vaccine like 27 years ago. That meant I risked having the results come back showing that I have no immunity. Which would have meant get the immunization (again, pricey on top of the test I just paid for) or find a doctor that would write me an exemption.

Thank Jeebus it came back that I have immunity. One less worry (I was concerned about finding a doc that would give me an exemption!). I have the Hep series from when I was a firefighter and I did get a TDAP in 2009.

I'm still working on the 3d modeling software trials.

It's FRUSTRATING! Good god, I don't know how Justin made into 3d modeling! All I can think of every time I start up the program is "holy crap, I could grab a block of clay and have this done in 10 minutes and then scan it!"

That was what I did for the Rufio costume and it worked out well. But I'm super determined to learn how to model. Especially when I see the possibilities for what I want to do design-wise.

I've got finals tomorrow and Tuesday. I've got Orientation on Saturday. Le Midge's birthday is next Tuesday. Christmas is next Wednesday.

We've got people asking about our New Years plans. We have barely even thought about Christmas, aside from sweet, delicious tri tip at my mom's.

3D Sculpting Software - Curvy 3D - Day 2

I'm still playing around with Curvy3D. I am going to work with Justin to try to come up with good evaluation tools from his standpoint (i.e., how the models will work for printing, etc.) to try to evaluate if the program works for our overarching needs, not just my desire to make organic shapes (really, what good is the model going to be if it doesn't print?!).

The other project I was working on was the Rufio costume for a friend. A friend approached me yesterday afternoon with the need for a Rufio costume for a party that started at 4 pm today! 

Not sure who Rufio is? A character from 1991's Hook. A bit random, right? Especially for a Christmas party. 

Here's the result:

I altered the jacket and made the necklace, including the beads. 

Not bad for such a quick turnaround. 

So with that taking up a bit of time (but amazingly not as much as I expected), I played around with Curvy3D. 

Keep in mind, my area of design is 2D. I'm great with Illustrator, Photoshop, etc. I have the hang of TinkerCAD as far as 3D goes, but I am, by no means experienced in 3D modeling. I have played a bit with Inventor (Autodesk) and AutoCAD (Autodesk). 

I really want a program that I can pick up my stylus and "draw". I played a bit with Sculptris but didn't really "get it" super quick (I will return to it after playing with Curvy3D). 

Here's my first attempt at really playing around with it doing more than just "what does this icon do?"

As you can see, I watch a lot of Ancient Aliens

Is this what our alien overlords will look like?

So this was created using some basic tools including "Create Cylinder", "Pull Tubes", "Add", "Sub" and "Smooth". 

I didn't really have a plan and wasn't entirely certain what I was doing, I sort of started "pushing" and "pulling" the clay and playing around with it. 

I've exported it as an .obj file so Justin can evaluate it's usefulness in 3D printing. He's currently working on a 3D printed trailer for a trailer park (the things people want), so I'll probably have a better idea as to the immediate usability of the model tomorrow. 

On an aside, I'm not exactly sure when my entire Pinterest feed began getting flooded with fashion and mens grooming products (pretty sure the grooming products being as hipstery as they are are courtesy of Shoppe Mob). I've got to start following some better boards. 

Any suggestions?

3D Sculpting Software - Curvy 3D

I'm trying to find a 3D modeling software that is relatively easy for a beginner to navigate. 

Everyone knows how much I love TinkerCAD but for a lot of what I want to do, it can't create organic shapes. You can only do so much creating .svgs in Illustrator and importing into TinkerCAD. I can't chamfer or bevel, I can't create fillets. 

I can use Autodesk's Inventor or AutoCAD but I really want to work organically. My other thought was to sculpt everything by hand and use the Sense 3D scanner to create models, but really, I should learn how to model digitally. 

I don't have the education that Justin has (and that is why he has an INTENSE understanding of models) and don't necessarily need to. But I need to be able to create organic designs digitally. I need to be able to do more than extrude an .svg file and print that (really, I could just be using a laser cutter, which is much faster and I could work in a variety of materials for that). 

To truly take advantage of what we are building, I need to model. 

I'm trying a bunch of programs out, either freeware or on trial basis, in the next few weeks to see how I feel about them and try to judge their ease of use. I want to find a program that a novice could play around with and not be frustrated. 

Enter Curvy3D. I'm going to play with it for at least a week. I started playing around with it today, but got a request to help make a Rufio costume by tomorrow. So I took the opportunity to carve some dragon's teeth for a necklace, make a mold and create custom beads for it. We also do some low tech manufacturing here was well. It's not always lasers and PLA :)

Clay "dragon tooth" (left) and inverse mold (right)

The beads are in the oven and will be assembled in the morning. 

Just in case you don't remember Rufio, here's a photo

I didn't really get far enough into Curvy3D start getting into the nitty gritty, but it allows me to start doing what I had planned for in my designs. There is a 30 day free trial (that's how I'm checking it out) and the normal cost is $99.00. It is currently discounted 25% for a sale price of $74.25. That's not bad considering the intense investment most other software entails. 

I plan do to some screen captures and possibly some videos while I'm playing around with it, which I will share here. Some others I am checking out will be Wings3D, Sculptris and Modo. 123D Sculpt (autodesk product) is, unfortunately, iPad only. So that's not going to be in the running.

Made In Space!?

We went to a really great 3D printing meet up on Sunday (it's been a busy week with Mind-2-Matter and getting ready for finals next week, so I wasn't timely in blogging about it).

It was hosted by Type A Machines and 3DHubs, who just recently unlocked San Francisco.

3DHubs is another print on demand service that required a certain number of printers to sign up in an area prior to "unlocking" a city. We had been watching for months for San Francisco to be unlocked but have been steadily using MakeXYZ to grow our business.

We spent a bit of time networking and one of the featured speakers was Made in Space!

What's Made in Space you ask?

Basically they are a group that is working on the first 3D printer in space!

How rad is that idea?

I can't say we're working on anything as ground (or space) breaking as 3D printing in space, but Mind-2-Matter getting to be a REALLY exciting project.

I'm working on the photography tomorrow morning before we head out to Half Moon Bay.

I went through the entire casting process on Saturday from spruing to pouring the investment mold to pouring the pewter! Justin took some video so I will get that posted up tomorrow as well as the photos of Gnorman in various states of being.

Here are a few of Gnorman from my cell phone (the real pictures will happen tomorrow!).

Brain Rot 

I really wanted to keep a golden Gnorman, but he had to go through the polishing stages!

The Studious Stag

I know I've been neglecting the blog a bit.

I have been working diligently on projects, especially now that I have a lot more time on my hands. I haven't really settled into a routine since losing my job. I really think that will help. We're going crabbing tomorrow (hopefully a crabfest will be had tomorrow night!) but I would really like to get a good routine down.

In fact, I just finished this piece today:

It's available in our Etsy store and it's a part of a series of 5 pieces I'm working on.

In all honesty, the general crappiness of the eCraft has been the hold up on this and several other projects.

Contacting Craftwell has been of little help other than "you're doing it wrong". I finally found a blogger at Purple Paper Paradise who apparently knows how to use the machine and is WAY more help than Craftwell's customer service.

I was able to get a few usable cuts following her tips, whereas I was still just throwing paper away trying to "do it right" according to Craftwell Customer Service.

Perhaps they need to sit down and watch PurplePaperParadise's videos in order to work in CS? I don't like to be mean to CS people, they're usually doing the best they can with the limited resources and training that they get. I'm more frustrated with companies that offer products with little to no support documentation and you just sort of have to figure out, especially when they purport their product to be easy to use out of the box.

I've got some additional projects on my list, including Christmas cards. I know it's a bit late (a lot of people do their Christmas cards Thanksgiving weekend), but I seriously didn't even think about them until I asked my husband yesterday if he wanted to send any out and if we were going to make them or do a lame photo card.

I hope to have cards ready by the weekend. You can always leave a comment here if you have suggestions. I'm really interested to hear if there are letter press plates that people really want to see made for units like the Fiskar's Fuse or the like. I've got the capacity to help make that a reality and have had it on my radar for a while now. I've asked friends and family if there were any sort of crafting themes they would like to see but none of them want to craft (everyone is into Instagram to apply filters to their photos but no one actually does anything with said photos).

Mind-2-Matter

You may remember Gnorman from earlier this year.

This was my free sculpture for my figure modeling class during the Spring 2013 semester at AAU.

This may be the piece of work that I am the most proud of ever. EVER. (and I've made a lot of art in the last 30 years). Needless to say I was most saddened when I was too busy to properly finish Gnorman and have him fired (I went straight from work/school to wedding prep/work and he dried out!).

I had been crossing my fingers that we could get him scanned before he was a total loss since June/July. Our method of scanning wasn't the easiest but Justin and I worked through a variety of methods using Kinect cameras for another project and I figured that we would, at some point, rig that set up again.

Well, we didn't have to.


The Gnomes (thanks to the Elder Gnome) have acquired the Sense 3D Scanner.

A few minutes time and we had a model to print. I was so excited I could barely contain myself last night! The original Gnorman is 8" W x 13" D x 24" H. New Gnorman is about 1" W x 1.5" D x 4" H!

So exciting!  

And it was just in time. Gnorman's ear fell off after we finished scan!

Golden........

I threw in some silver AND gold tonight.

I can't say I'm thrilled with the time change though. I don't like walking home in the dark. Or walking the dog in the dark when I get home. Point being, I like it when it's light out. The early darkness makes me feel like I should be in bed.

Made the awesome Puerto Rican Pulled Pork recipe that I found in a Costco Magazine of all places (I totally put it in my llama recipe journal). Speaking of Costco, I picked up meat there last week and have been good to go all week!  Yay me. I made a pork roast last Saturday and another today. Did some meals with ground beef (burgers and sauteed veggies with an avocado are my quick go to meal on school nights).

I accidentally over cooked my cauliflower yesterday (it was pretty brown, not quite blackened though) and it was delicious!

I'm settling into a better routine when it comes to cooking and working and making art. While I didn't keep doing a tangle EVERY day after the initial 36 days, I come home and work on SOMETHING just about every day. And I don't beat myself up if I want to go to bed early or read a book.

So I finally heard back from Craftwell yesterday and the conclusion they came up with is "you have your pressure settings too high" so it's your fault your paper is snagging. My pressure was set at 4. My paper was a very heavyweight card stock. I've tried going lower than 4 and it barely even presses in to the paper and does not cut. So it looks like I will be preparing more videos outlining the outcome of EVERY pressure setting, starting at 1.

It's pretty weak when a company makes excuses for their product. The eCraft should be able to cut 40 circles on a single page. It should also have some sort of speed control, be it on the machine itself or a speed control in the software. Everything shouldn't be blamed on the user. I have photos of paper snagging back when I first got it and it was doing it even when I was attempting to cut 5*7 rounded rectangles (I definitely would NOT call that a complex cut!).

Insert something witty here......

I decided to change things up a bit today and add some gold into the mix.

Had class tonight and missed out on company bowling night. Booo. And for what? So I could sit in a lecture about how to use the computer and do research at the library.

I guess sometimes I forget that people aren't necessarily willing to "figure it out" themselves (I forget this at work as well). Apparently curiosity is not natural and most people need step by step instruction for everything. Personally, I would rather just be let go with something and figure it out. The way someone tells me how to do something may not be the most efficient way.

I guess my desire to "figure it out" helps me in the workplace as well. I have to look at photos of products that I have never touched and answer some insane questions some of the time. I also have to figure out how to explain assembly instructions over the phone for products I've never seen. I'd like to think I'm pretty good at it.

I've got to provide MMR vaccination records to SFSU. Really?! I can only assume I had the MMR vaccination in Placerville somewhere, so I will have to ask my mom.

I'm working on some ideas and will have some cool projects coming up. I'll share them as I get them together.

Zentangle.......

But I'm really not sure what day to call it. I think it would be #38 based upon the sequence from when I was doing it daily. While I haven't been doing a tangle daily, I have been "making" daily. "Time Goes By" took quite a few days of work and layout to get it all assembled and framed.

We also went to the Elder Gnome's home to do some metal casting. That was pretty rad and a few more crucibles have been obtained. Which means more metal types. Which means brass. I need to figure out some modeling software and make something for my gramps. Every time I see brass, I think of him. Before his hands (and head) started bothering him a lot, he spent a lot of time buffing brass. Every time we include antique brass items in a collection at work, I think of my gramps! He should have been buying up used brass and selling it on Etsy! We sell so much brass (and throw pillows, which I still don't get the point of).

I did tangle today. I went in to work late so I could help Justin with some additional rack installation and got home around 8. I did some yoga (I highly recommend myyogaworks.com for home practice - there's a lot of variety and it costs less than drop in at a single class!).

I had a thought recently about homeless people. Perhaps they are so fried in part due to dehydration (it can make you pretty weird). They are often wearing 5-6 layers of clothes, they drink mostly alcohol (I've never seen a bum drink a bottle of water) and they are exposed to the elements all the time. Something to think about.

Time for bed.

365 Days of Zentangles - Day 37

Day 37! I did it. And a bunch of other stuff this weekend too. I swear sleep was what I needed. It was the first weekend I didn't feel stressed about work, which made my weekend that much better.

I battled ants yesterday in the garden. I tried to make muffins (fail). I succeeded in making tiny pumpkin pies. I doubled down on the tangles yesterday. I did something else but am not entirely certain what it was.

Today I got up and did yoga for an hour. I made coffee. I sat on the porch and drank said coffee while reviewing for my Contemporary Art midterm that is tomorrow night. I made a slideshow of all the pieces I may be tested on for that class (not sure why people make flashcards anymore, putting together a slide show is much more efficient). Started this project:

I've had this vision in my head for a couple of weeks now. When it is finished, I am going to mount it in a shadowbox frame.

This is where I got today:

I'm using M0rt for this project. I read a lot of people's complaints on the forums over at Craftwell. "it's not mat free. You have to use something." "It's ripping my paper." "It doesn't work right" "I should have kept my Cricut"

Having used a Cricut for work and having used M0rt, I have to say I like the e-craft (M0rt) more than the Cricut.

First things first, the cutting mats. e-craft is a "matless" cutting system, meaning it doesn't require consumable sticky mats that are a proprietary design and you don't need to buy a new one every couple of projects. Cost aside (they range from $7-$12/ea), they stink. They have an odor I cannot stand. It's repulsive. If I had to smell that every time I wanted to make anything, I'd get rid of the machine. Paper stick to the mats horrendously (I ended up losing a large number of cuts to the mat alone). Hair sticks to the mats. Dust sticks to the mats. It's gross.

The e-craft (M0rt) is matless in the sense it doesn't require a sticky mat. Some materials will need a "carrier" though. Light weight paper, fabric, cellophane, things like that will need a "carrier". What's a "carrier" and how is that different than a mat? The carrier can be anything that is thicker and sturdier than the paper in question. When I need a carrier, I just use the chipboard or lightweight cardboard from the back of a paper stack with a bit of Scotch "blue" tape (removable tape) to keep the edges down. I'm re-purposing materials, which is a big part of LaserGnomes.

I have to say that both M0rt and the Cricut actually aren't that rad for cutting really detailed pieces. Both end up having a bit of blade drag (which I have observed a way around, but can't exactly figure out what the eCraftShop Pro does to calculate a cut path). That being said, as frustrating and wasteful as it sounds, you ultimately need to have a new blade every 5 sheets of paper or so. In one of my art classes, we were told to use a new x-acto blade for EVERY CUT in order to attain the best results and cleanest cuts possible. Mind you, we were masking areas off with frisket for renderings and that takes a ton of cuts. This is the equivalent of that.

Cricut blades are about $10 for a 2 pack, whereas e-Craft blades are $22 for a 20 pack. This makes switching blades out a lot less painful.

There are some other reasons I really love M0rt that I will get into another day. It seems like a lot of the people who complain that it's not a Cricut are people who just want to push a button and choose from predetermined designs. Not how I want to craft, but hey, to each their own, right?