Ceramic 3D Print

First off for this project I started with a couple of very rough sketches, some of them just being concepts or ideas rather than fully worked out pieces. My two favorite ideas out of my concepts were the idea of a cup which starts energetic at the bottom and ends calm at the top, as well as the idea of the base being a triangle, which lofts to a square, which lofts to a pentagon, which lofts to a hexagon, and so on.

These two ideas sort of came together in the concept my group and I chose to be our final. The model, most clearly demonstrated in the slicer rendering, starts as fairly clustered waves at the bottom, then they slowly disperse until eventually the form reaches a circle at the top. The way this form was achieved was lofting six-sided stars, then a hexagon, and finally a circle together. As the form goes up, the points of the stars get shorter and the "body" of the star becomes a bigger and bigger diameter.

Possibly the most enjoyable part of this model for me is moving through the different layers in slicer. From the top view the shape seems to almost convulse.

During the printing the star shapes definitely became apparent. Apart from one minor hiccup, the finished print turned out extremely clean and surpassed my expectations. My group has agreed to me taking ownership of the cup, so once it is bisqued I plan to glaze the inside and upper outer portion white, either gloss or matte, and the bottom half of the outside gloss black. This project really fed the little industrial designer inside me and I am looking forward to doing much more with the ceramic printer.

Hollow Form Chalice Completed

Along the road of getting this project printed, there were quite a few hiccups. First off is that the support structure for the handle was being printed solid, second being the fact that the print itself took over 6 hours to complete, and finally the MendelMax isn't capable of printing 8 inch tall objects as we originally thought. The final problem listed was solved by breaking the Chalice into 2 sections, the base/handle and the bowl. once these 2 parts finished printing they were welded together with acetone. Because of the acetone welding, the cup is actually water tight! The final cup idea obviously incorporates the twisted mesh from my concept, but Mark's concept in integrated in a slightly more subtle way. Both of us thought that his chosen concept slightly resembled a water tower, so the idea of it holding water is carried over into the final Chalice. In the end I am very pleased with how our chalice turned out. Enjoy!