MAT 238: Generative Design

For this assignment, we were tasked with creating a generative design study in Fusion 360. I decided to create a wall mount for my guitar.

For the first part of this assignment, I first wanted to start with a basic wall mount shape. In order to do this, I simply created a rectangular prism that had two holes along its middle axis that represented holes for screws. However, once I created this prism, I realized I wanted to actually fill the middle of the wall mount with generative design material. Thus, I pivoted my wall mount design to have a rectangular outline that was empty in the middle. To do this, I simply created a small rectangle from the side view and extruded it along the "width" axis to 3inches. Then, I switched to the front view and created a long and narrow rectangle that connected to the edge of the bottom and top rectangles, and extruded it along the depth. After this frame was created, I added back the holes for the screws by creating a cylinder with the same depth as the frame, and carving out a hole using the same operations.

Next, once I created my outlined rectangular wall mount design, I began focusing on the shape of the holder. Once I got my desired curve shape, I offset and extruded the curve to make it a 3D object. I measured the width of my guitar to ensure the spacing of the curve could fit the neck of my guitar into it. Finally, I added come fillets to the edges to make the edges smoother. This design represented my preserve geometry.

After creating my preserve geometry, I began my generative design study. I created a load on the top face of the holder, representing where the weight of the guitar would be placed. I gave this a force of 50N to be able to withstand about 5kg of force from holding the guitar. Next, I added load constraints on the back faces of the frame and screw cylinders to represent mounting them to a wall. I had trouble with this at first in understanding what the purpose of the load constraints were, but after reading some documentation and forums, I was able to correctly apply them.

After creating my preserve geometry and load constraints, I created a large obstacle shape representing the next of my guitar. Since I am new to Fusion and don't know how to properly make a curve that is pressed up against the holder, I had to manually adjust the points until it was close enough to my desired surface. Then I simply extruded this surface through the holder so the study would not generate designs in those places.

Once I completed my parameters for my generative design, I began the study. It took a few hours to complete for each study, but some of my best resulting designs are shown here. In order to optimize print time, I printed the object on its base to minimize supports.