The video will explain it

TM 2.0 build

Hey, it's been a while but I'm back!

Introducing TM 2.0 with a new joint design. The print arrived this weekend for Shapeways so I could put it together. This design no longer has the fixed joints, instead it has a real hinge so that the crossing members can run through eachother. However this does mean that it's not printable in one piece anymore, since steel and Nylon don't yet mix very well in a 3D printer.
Here are some pictures:

The part's where so small and close together that at one end they had fused together in the SLS machine. This gave me a bit of a panic for 1/2 an hour. But in the end I decided to simply cut them loose form each other

Drilling with a 1.5 mm drill. Since the holes where dimensioned at 1.2 mm these had also been partly fused by the SLS. However they where not completely sintered through and provided a nice guide for the drill. All holes where easy to drill even with these small dimensions.

Then putting in the 1.2 mm steel wire that acts as the hinge.

And there you have it!

Testing the first print

The first print from Shapeways, amazingly strong and flexible material this is.
http://www.shapeways.com/model/454873/turrismotus.html

Project online

Yeah, the project is online. Now the hard part of promoting the whole thing. I made this clip to introduce the project. Quality is due to time constraints, if you order at shapeways.com before 4th of december you will recieve your TM (TurrisMotus) before Santa gets to your house!

Grasshopper model for making solids

So the plan was to share TurrisMotus (TM) through Shapemways. And then a solid model is needed instead of the surface model I had so far. So this weekend I worked hard to make it. Here it is:

It grew a little bigger again and some streamlining could be done to decrease build time. But this is for future models where I'd like to have a online application allowing people to build there own TM.

The story continues

Thanks to a good working session with my tutors I finally have a modeling approach that gives me the control I want. Here is a first experiment with it finding out how the shadow might look, made using 'Project' in Grasshopper. (Sun movement is reverse from natural btw.)
In this model I can set radius, height & width of the cell wall and angle of the corners in the bottom row of the structure. It then determines the nr. of cells around and in height on its own to make a fitting roof.

Movement controll

The movement of the cells can be controlled in two ways, the first is to change the angle of the corners. The twist in the cell walls stays constant.