So our GrippingBean came out a little bit massive. Kavin pointed out that it actually totally defeated the purpose of creating a comfortable grip experience for the user. So we put our heads together, and came up with a new sketch, and MUCH more ideal dimensions. After re-cadding it, we threw that bad boy on the printer in a bright yellow filament to create another rapid prototype. After fighting with Makerware for an embarrassing amount of time, hopefully we’re on the right track to a better print.

IF this one works, Vishal showed us two different types of flexible filament that in the end would be super perfect for what we’re trying to accomplish. We want a material that contrives enough friction to get a firm grip on a variety of products. He had me do some research on these flexible filaments, as they need a bit more “TLC” when putting them through a printer.

This week, we’re headed to the FabLab again, in which as we work with new technologies, we’ll also be able to put our print through. In the end, if we decide that the design is ideal, we’re looking to get it cast in silicon. If that works, Boom. We’ve made a product that would aid the elderly or those afflicted with tremors in a ton of everyday activities.

The biggest issue of the CU Make-a-thon last weekend for our team was solved before we even met up! Jill had a product idea and a hand-drawn 3D render of the product, which, after some discussions with the team, would ultimately come to be known as the GrippingBean. It draws on the functions of ‘Fat-Gripz’, a pair of cylindrical sleeves that thicken the diameter of a barbell or a dumbbell so as to recruit more muscle fibers when using them. We like to think of the Gripping Bean as a grip-thickener that would aid people with hand-tremors or severe arthritis as their hands are bound to be shaky and are prone to dropping items with thin handles, like a spoon or a toothbrush, or even the handle of a teacup! The benefits of having an industrial design major on the team were countless, as Jill also created an initial CAD model of the bean though Fusion 360.

We realized that our prototype was thick enough o defeat the purpose of a comfortable grip, so the following class, we printed out a smaller version with lesser curve around the edges to make for a more compact feel, although none of us were in class to get a glimpse of the finished 2.0 prototype. Vishal was kind enough to give us some flexible filament, which we hope to use through some of the bigger printers in the FabLab and we are totally looking forward to our next session.

Our initial model

Heart and flowers modeled in Mathematica separately, then using MeshMixer to edit, scale and put them together.
This is also a part for my 3D printing project “Surprise Box”.

Update

1. The original file named “Flowery_Heart_Right_Size_2” is the basic concept of it, and although it looks nice, it is not printable on most of the 3D printers, because of several problems, like too many shells, the petals are too thin, etc.

2. The printable and updated version is named “ReallyFinally3stl_repariedsimplied”. This one has been cleaned, made solid, checked errors, strengthened and simplified. Therefore, this one is more suitable for printing. I will test it within a few days and put on the picture of the printed version here later.
Also, since the original flowers were not suitable for printing, I changed the numbers of the formulas on Mathematica a little bit, and get some different shapes of flowers. (PS. If you notice, all the three flowers are different.) It is also interesting to disco(ver that when I change the power of one of the formula, I will be able to generate something that looked like a butterfly! Therefore, I added the butterfly on the new version!                                                                 ( Original Version)

(Second Version)

In the process of trying to fix the problems, I learned a lot, like using new softwares like “MeshMixer”, “MeshLab” and “NetFabb”. I found these three very useful in different aspects:

1. MeshMixer is a place where you can edit and change your STL file, just like TinkerCad. However, MeshMixer is much more powerful than TinkerCad. For example, I failed to complete my edition of the flowery heart on TinkerCad, because it may be too complicated for TinkerCad. But I can do so in MeshMixer. Also, MeshMixer allow you to dynamically change the surface of the object, and provide functions like “make solid”, , smoothing, uniform scaling, and a lot more, which TinkerCad is not able to provide.

2. MeshLab is very useful for remesh the object. At first my STL file was ridiculously big, like 650+MB, which was very inconvenient because it slowed down my computer and I am not able to printed a file that’s huge like this. And usually, this problem can be solved if I lower my density of meshes, in another words, have a smaller amount of meshes. MeshLab gives you a function where you can simplify the model and reduce the meshes. It also shows you how many vertices and faces you have in your model. And by looking at these numbers, I was able to monitor the process of reducing faces amount, and chose the right level I wanted. This helped me to reduce the size of my file hugely, and finally get to a printable file of about 11MB.

(PS. I have an interesting discovery about decreasing the size of your file as well- If you get your STL file from somewhere else, like TinkerCad, MeshMixer, or from MakerBot Software after scaling it there, if you import the file in Blender or MeshLab, and then export it out from there, they will give you the minimized size possible for your current file!)

3. NetFabb (Basic) is a very helpful software too. It can help you fix the errors that your file may have automatically. Therefore, it can help clear up the printing errors before you put them to print!

I held off on this reflection until after we finished our Make-a-thon creations, but this weeks “making” stepped up to a whole new level.

We kicked it in the FabLab again back on Tuesday and did some super cool work with Arduinos. I have absolutely NO background when it comes to coding. If I ever found myself looking at code, it was because I pressed the wrong button on my laptop and something weird happened and I was panicking. Suddenly, I was writing my own code to make something light up, eventually making my own motion sensor which was so freakin’ cool! It was so simple what I was doing but it still yielded a really really exciting result. I was so proud of my little light that I was ready to jump into the electrical engineering career path

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The next endeavor was the Make-A-Thon. I hopped in bright and early on Saturday morning and got to thinking about what could truly better the lives of the elderly. I was toying with the idea of a toothbrush with an easier grip, but then it occurred to me, why just a toothbrush? Why not create something adaptable to all sorts of different tools? (pens, pencils, utensils ect.) So I sketched out an adaptable gripper that looked like a bean with a hole in it. Kavin and Lin joined me and we all put our ideas together when it came to uses, material, and how we were gonna get this thing done.

We toyed with the idea on Fusion, but I was having a ton of trouble learning the command to cut the hole. Anyone I asked seemed to find this seemingly simple task super difficult as well, so there we sat. Befuddled. I threw it into Solidworks to see if I could do it that way but that was a struggle as well. All hope was slowly disappearing until one of the staff members found us and he knew what to do! What had taken hours, we were able to complete in a few minutes with his help. In the end, we created the Lima-Gripper. It adapts to arthritic hands to ease simple tasks and create a comfortable hold on smaller objects. Dexterity becomes an issue for those with severe arthritis, Parkinsons, as well tremors. We wanted to create something that alleviated that problem. We wanted the grip to be adaptable, so it could fit onto a multitude of objects, but have enough friction to stay on the objects it was placed on. The outside would have a soft outer grip shell, while the inside would be silicon. Bada-bing, bada-boom, The Lima-Gripper.

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It was a blast working with Kavin and Lin. We had a really fun team dynamic, and we had some super cool ideas together. Kavin was a huge contributor with his knowledge of some crazy product- FatGripz. They’re some ridiculous tool for body-builders to improve grip on weights, but they were strangely applicable to our idea. He did some solid research in regards to material, as well as how they can help with what we created. I had only signed up for Saturdays making session so him and Lin both rocked it for the presentation. We were a solid team, and the entire experience was SO much fun!

For my final project, I decided to integrate different interesting software and technologies to make a “Surprise Box”.

The idea is to make a box. And when people open the box, they will be surprised to find that there is a heart with some flowers in the box. Also, you can hang it on the wall and the “box” will then become a calendar or a task board. I want to make this because I like cute little things that make people happy, and I want to make it useful in life as well.

The original plan was to use Mathematica to model the heart. I was thinking combining two functions together, one is the original heart shape function, and another one would be some kind of function that could give my heart some special and pretty pattern/texture.

And I was thinking about buying a flower and scan it and then put it on my heart. However, I changed the plan a little bit and model both the heart and the flowers on Mathematica.

Here’s my current progress on this:

(Flower)

(Heart)

(PS. I researched some online sources to find the codes for them, especially the flower and how to make the “tube” texture one. And I derive my own heart shape function.)

(Comment to let me know if I should post the codes here!)

However, I was not able to eliminate the gap in the heart. Therefore, I put both of them in TinkerCad and edited them to make them look nicer.

It took a very long time and some hard work to figure out the codes and the design, but in the end, it was all worthwhile! The moment when I finally finish putting them together, I felt proud of myself!

4/13/20115