jmacleodidblog-blog

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Here is my video.

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Here are some pictures I took of my grip. The print came out really nicely and is a perfect fit on a standard No. 2 pencil. It was disappointing that the greens did not print very well due to the low hardness of the printed part, but the harder red pieces came out very vibrant and they are quite spiky.

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After receiving critique from Professor Jeongbin, we decided this wasn’t unique enough from other pencil grips. An idea was to make a grip or writing utensil of some sort that only worked for one person, a sword in the stone kind if idea.

I saw an opportunity here with the spikes to do this. I basically studied my pencil grip and mapped it out in GrabCad in a heat map of sorts. The green parts are areas of contact, and as they move towards red, the less pressure there is. Since the J750 allows nine different levels of hardness for the soft Agilus printing, I was able to assign different values to each color. Basically, this pencil grip is comfortable for me (a lefty), but to someone else it will likely create some discomfort due to their grip not matching the pattern on the spikes.

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Next, I imported my STL into GrabCad and began assigning colors and hardness to all 120 of the spikes. My first plan wax to make a sweet rainbow pattern. While it looked cool, I decided it did not follow along with the theme of portraying an uncomfortable, painful pencil grip, so I scrapped it. 

For my second iteration I made the majority of the spikes grey with the last few rows a yellow to red gradient, which communicated the theme much more effectively. I also created a gradient of soft to hard from the top to bottom, making it comfortable at the top and providing more support towards the bottom. The change in density would also create a color gradient of the black spikes.

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I went into fusion and made up some sketch models. But first, I looked up the dimensions of a Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencil and modeled it, because fit is so crucial for a product like this. 

I had the idea to make a grip that looks really aggressive and painful to use, but it’s actually soft and comfortable. I was thinking to make this work I could print it on the J750 printer. I did a couple pattern operations in solidworks and made up 120 spikes on the pencil grip. To contrast this one, I wanted to make a grip that looked very soft and organic but was actually a hard material. 

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When I started ideating, I focused on thinking of very obscure ways that the body requires support. I considered an arm rest for working on a laptop, or some sort of finger sleeve to avoid jammed fingers. Even a spiky chair that promoted an active lifestyle. Then I had the idea to create a pencil grip. I remember writing timed essays in high school and my hand cramping up like crazy and getting sore, so if I could design a unique support for the hand to attach to a pencil that would be great. So I thumbnailed some different ideas for what it could possibly look like. 

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Project 4

For project four we were tasked with designing an object that provides support for the human body in some way and that is interesting in a visual and tactile sense. 

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Some final pictures of my creations

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Reflection

All in all, I chewed 186 pieces of gum plus 180 cm of groovy grape bubble tape in the past couple weeks, give or take a few. My jaw initially complained in the form of soreness, but in the spirit of good design I powered through the pain and I’ve now developed a bite force rivaling that of a saltwater crocodile. Working with e gum proved for some very interesting experimentation that made me feel like a mad scientist at times. It was tricky figuring out the best way to dry and harden the gum. I found that the freezer was an excellent short term solution, but in minutes the gum reverted back to its sticky state. I tried putting it in a room with the heat cranked and that kind of worked. Either way, I’m sure these works will get better with age like some fine wine once they harden up. I might not ever chew gum again.

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or my third form, I decided to make a rope, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching Bear Grylls on television it’s that rope is always good to have. I decided to braid it, because that is the strongest. It was much harder than I thought it would be. One, because I didn’t know how to braid, and two learning was a lot more difficult when the individual strands of gum kept sticking to each other. I eventually developed a strategy of hanging it off a table and sticking the loose ends away from the middle one. It was slow going and very methodical but worked well enough in the end. It was also difficult to prevent the strands from stretching out too much to the point of breaking.

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Next, I made a spork, because you will need something to eat with, and this is most practical by using the least amount of resources. For this one I melted a ball of gum down much more than with the cup, to try and completely separate sugar from gum. Once it was melted, I let it sit and scraped the gum off the aluminum, with most of the sugar staying stuck to the foil. I think it worked because this stuff was insanely sticky. I would have taken pictures but my hands were covered in gum; it was a mess. Once hardened, the spork was hardly sticky at all and pretty solid.

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I scaled up my operation and melted down a bunch of gum in a sheet. I did this because I decided I would make a cup to drink and collect water, and decided this would be the best way to make the sides of the cup. It couldn’t wrap all the way around, however, so I cooked up another sheet to complete the cup. The bottoms of the gum sheets ended up getting blackened from the melted sugar, which gives the gum more structure and durability as well as a different look.

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I needed more gum, so picked up a couple more varieties, as well as more Hubba Bubba. In class I talked to Professor Jeongbin and he gave me the idea to create objects that someone might make if their plane went down in the wilderness carrying a huge shipment of chewing gum. I really liked this idea and decided to roll with it. 

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For my first main experiment, I took all the gum I had chewed up to this point and put it in a makeshift aluminum foil pot on my stove top. I’ve got a limited kitchen setup in my dorm, so it’s been a challenge to make do with what I have. The gum melted down quickly and started bubbling. The sugar began separating and burning a little, so I turned on the vent so I didn’t set the fire alarm off. Once melted, I put the entire apparatus in the fridge to cool. After a few minutes, I took it out and it was relatively solid. I had trouble peeling off the aluminum foil without it ripping.

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I bought a variety of chewing gums to see if there was much variance between types. I found the Hubba Bubba to be much tougher than Trident and Dentyne, with Juicy Fruit somewhere in the middle. Countdown at Cable Car Lane had the best gum selection that I could find.

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Next, I heated up some gum on the stove. It quickly started bubbling and increased in size. When I turned off the heat, it flattened out like a pancake.

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My first experiment was microwaving gum, and it got pretty nasty. It was really sticky and soft and not very useful at all.