Tower #2

Homework Assignment for MAT 111PF, Week 3.

Fusion 360, 1/8'' plywood, laser cutter.

I was going through skyscrapers to gather inspiration for my own tower design. The Seattle Needle Tower was my main source of inspiration. I had done a simple sketch of what I initially was thinking in terms of design.

When I started to put it into Fusion 360, I initiated it with the circular top piece. This is where I had designed all the press fits into it. It is design with 4 legs, which all slight expand inwards as the reach the bottom. The press fit for the legs has no upper stabilization, allowing for a flat top area. I had added 4 upper shapes, which are press fit normally into the circular top piece. All the pieces are parameterized. I had thought of adding an "antenna", but decided it didn't look good after designing it in, so I took it out.

I had imported the fusion design into Adobe Illustrator and marked all the lines red for cutting. The laser cutting took about 1 minute and 30 seconds, with little hassle. All pieces came out intact and correctly.

Thee outcome was good, It all came together. Although the press fits were very tight and required a good amount of force to get in. I believe I may have adjusted the model a little when putting it into the laser cutting software.

I liked the idea of utilizing loss of control to bring forth creation. I had some of that loss of control during my fabrication. I was trying to even out the upper pieces, but due to multiple things being connected I lost control over the specific thing I wanted and it created a design I liked for the pieces. It included a straight triangle design that went inwards, which I was kind of pursuing above, but not below. I decided to implement that unintentional design, which can be seen in the immediate inward slope on the upper triangular pieces.