Starting with the Building Blocks
Our assignment for this week was to create a Press Fit Construction pieces kit with the aid of the laser machine to cut out our design. I wanted to make pieces that resembled the Tetris blocks because it was one of the first things to came to mind when the assignment was assigned. The blocks were able to fit perfectly whenever I would play the game so I think it would work out well on this project.
I was going to use Inkscape to design my kit because I've been using Inkscape more frequently ever since I became active with the Fablab. However, for some reason my Mac Book Pro would not let me install it. And yes, I installed XQuartz, reset my notebook, and installed Inkscape. But it seems that no matter how many times I repeated the process or if I did other gimmicks Google told me too, I couldn't succeed. As a result, I turned to Adobe Illustrator because I forgot who mentioned it but someone said that they would use Illustrator as an Inkscape alternate for vector design.
I planned on using the square and long "l" pieces from the Tetris game to create my figures. I design my initial unit square which would become to be .5" x .5" because I noticed each Tetris block consisted of smaller Tetri blocks. I have to go small to go big! But, I also thought that it would be a great idea to cut a square that was 1/8" x 1/8" on the center of my bigger squares because I would like to connect my pieces in the end. I was thinking of making the Gundam action figures I would assemble when I was younger.
I still have not gotten use to design with vectors because the biggest problem I was having was erasing the intersections when I was putting my arms for my boxes. It took me a while to get use to... and ALOT of Google searching to figure out how to resolve my problem. I had to group my objects because I can execute my Add vectors operation and likewise with subtracting.
After I figured out how to use Illustrator, everything seemed so clear now. Crystal Clear!
I was able to finally create sample pieces using the boxes and "l" from Tetris and now I'm ready to print.
My pieces turned out well!
I managed to create the lower part of a body. But, working with cardboard with difficult because the material becomes flimsy on the
arms, but I managed.
