02 Computer Controlled Cutting

Jeff Putney
Mon, 16 Feb 2015 15:58:55 GMT
Computer Controlled Cutting

Let's violate a patent. It's easy!

A few weeks ago a friend showed me a bunch of small parts he 3D printed that would assemble into a polyhedron when you put a bunch of them in a box and shake them up. Aparently he had found the design on Thingiverse, printed his own copy, and then shared a picture of it back on thingiverse. He then got a message that said what he created most likely violated this patent which basically claims that only one person in the US has the right to make a polyhedra that snaps together in only one way using magnets. The message also said that if he was only printing it for educational purposes he was probably safe from legal attack. Then the entire model page went missing from the thingiverse. So I decided to recreate a new pressfit version this week.

First the sketch

I started by modeling a single side in blender. I then used the the UV Unwraping function to create a cut pattern for each side. Blender alows you to save a high resolution bitmap of the side which I then opened up in Illustrator to create a final vectorized version for cutting.

Blender File.

Time to cut, and cut, and cut some more

I then did a few series of test cuts to make sure the pressfit pieces were working the way I wanted. I also found the the magnets would be sufficiently held in place by simply cutting slightly undersized holes and hammering them in place.

Laser cutting design pdf.

The final pieces looked nice and snapped together well. I would love to add the top pieces which makes them only able to assemble into polyhedra pieces, but that would actually be illegal according to our current laws.

Vinyl Cutting

See Week 3 for Vinyl Cutting Skillz

Final Thoughts

A friend recently showed me this Decolonial Media License 0.1. And reading it really made me realize how messed up and part of a larger system of systemic oppression patents and licenses can be. I'm really starting to see them as a way for the powerful to colonize and claim intellectual spaces. Sometimes literally regardless if others might have been there first. And our system enables them to literally take away others rights to be in that space after they've dropped their flag... or I mean patent.