S100 - Vacuum Casting with Anna

Anna has been casting a lot this summer and I love casting so I've been her assistant on a couple occasions. In undergrad, I always did centrifugal casting, so watching Anna do the vacuum casting was exciting for many reasons... One is that if I ever decided to do casting after I graduate, I will not need to invest in a centrifuge and a vacuum table, potentially. Two is that this seemed more do-able on my own. 

S100 - The Arduino Stater Kit - Project 12

Knock Lock - This project was fun! I had to trouble shoot the knocking a lot but eventually got the lock mechanism to work. In this project a piezo is used as an input. Depending on the number of knocks the piezo hears it will move the servo to "lock" or "unlock."


I really like the serial monitor, it makes the transition between tech and real easier to understand.

S100 - The Arduino Stater Kit - Project 11

Crystal Ball - These tutorials just keep getting better and better - I loved this one... it's so easy to customize. I also really liked the tilt switch... You just move the switch upside down and a little bearing inside of it activates a change in the switch state. I could see integrating this mechanism into another type of object like the compact mirror seamlessly.


And then the ego took control...............


S100 - Rhino Gold - Bracelet to Ring

A friend of mine asked me to do something with this a long time ago - and I think I'm finally going to put in some work on it. Her mom had gotten her this bracelet when she was little and it unfortunately broke. I did a 3D scan of the object the other day and took some preliminary pictures of the ring... My plan is to design a ring using Rhino Gold, get it printed through Shapeways in wax, cast, and set the stone after. I've never done a ring design in Rhino Gold - or printed from Shapeways before - so this will be a nice low risk experiment.





S100 - Guitars for Vets

I ran into MDB in the hallway and he mentioned he was working on a project with some found guitars... We got to talking and he said that the project is a fundraiser for Guitars for Vets - Each year, Beverly Belfer from the Music Department organizes the donation of guitars to be painted or reworked into sculpture by artists for auction at an event in support of Guitars for Veterans. The guitars are supplied. While she would like for several of the guitars to remain playable, there is an opportunity to transform some into sculptural objects. - Broc Toft, another graduate student at UWM and I have decided to collaborate on a guitar sculpture... It's going to be fabulous.

We met last week Friday and started tearing apart a guitar - I took all the hardware, and he took the neck from our "rock-starred" guitar. I'm going to experiment with surfaces and pattern on most of the pieces I've taken... will do some work on the dark part of the body too... TBC




e-NABLE Fellowship - Karuna's Trumpet Holder - Final Design Release

...and that's a wrap! Like with anything I've ever made before, I feel like this is object is one I could keep designing forever, over and over, re-doing all of the components until it's perfect, but sometimes you've just got to say "Hey - this is great! 1st iteration done!" and take a break for a little while. I've had such a great time working on this project. I never could have anticipated the feeling of accomplishment associated with designing for the e-NABLE community. Thank you everyone who has made this fellowship possible!

You can find the final designs on Thingiverse and Youmagine.



e-NABLE Fellowship - Karuna's Trumpet Holder - Scalable .stl

As I am getting prepared to release the files, I've begun to create scalable versions of all the Trumpet Adaptive Device components. It's been kind of challenging for a few of the components because I hadn't thought about this being needed at first... so I haven't modified them in the "right" way, but they will work just fine. I will definitely keep this in mind in the future for any other scalable objects I make.

e-NABLE Fellowship - Karuna's Trumpet Holder - Final Revisions

Revised Gauntlet |||||| The functional parts of the gauntlet needed a little bit more attention, specifically strength. I attempted to extend the surface slightly to increase the amount of material around the hole, but it wasn't working right. I finally decided to simply adjust the location of the hole and also adjusted the size of the Velcro slot to be more in line with the stock size of the material. 




Revised Palm ||||||| I changed the placement of the holes for rotating the palm on the trumpet holder. The previous holes were estimations, but now the holes are custom to Karuna's liking.

closed up the old holes
The measurement markings for adjusting the holes to fit Karuna's needs.






S100 - UWM @ Morning Glory - FORM event photographs

Here are some images I took of the show this past weekend at Morning Glory. FORM was intended to showcase a cross-section of work from recent UWM alumni. Each object represents an aspect of their individual creative practice that was formed in the Jewelry and Metalsmithing program at UWM. Find more information at the exhibition website > here. 

We made all the displays custom for this show... which was a lot of work, but it surely paid off... I think we had one of the best looking booths at the event. There is still definitely room for improvement, but overall I'm impressed we were able to pull it off in essentially a week. 











































S100 - Morning Glory Display - Part 2

 Frankie got a bunch of acrylic cut to size for our shelves. After laser cutting a few details into the small pieces, I started to bend all of the table/shelf accessories for holding rings, cuffs, necklaces etc. Each of these small displays took about 45 minutes to make... You've got to have a lot of patience to wait for the heating element to gently heat the piece, but be careful not to over heat the piece (so it's hard to multi-task while bending) and cause bubbling. The bigger pieces took longer - about 1 hour...



S100 - UWM @ Morning Glory Fine Art Craft Fair

I was given the opprotunity to organize, curate and execute a juried alumni exhibition for the Morning Glory Fine Art Craft Fair (more info: wdcc.org), so OF COURSE I said yes. I've participated in craft fairs before, but I've never run a juried exhibition, so that is very exciting to me.

One thing that I really miss about participating in events with Studio303, is organizing and planning shows, and interacting with the community.

So far, I've created a call for entry, designed an exhibition postcard, created a website, helped design a display, and started fabricating display... and much more... Hope you stop by! August 8-9th 10AM - 5PM at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts.


S100 - Morning Glory Display - Part 1


I did some experimenting with the laser cutter to cure powder coat on acrylic for the Morning Glory display... although my results were pretty spotty, I'd be interested in trying to refine my ability to do this process in the future.  For the final display, we went with the cut and engraved only, skipped the powder coat.