The School of Jewellery were very fortunate to have been given 2 Autodesk Ember 3D Printers to aid the Design for Industry course and really push project development. In conjunction with this Autodesk hired 5 students (myself being one of them) to run the machines and blog about the process.
So, at the beginning of the school year we had 1 printer which was able to print in resin. This was great for model making and testing designs. Students were then able to mould this if they wanted or take their STL files to be printed and in a cast able material in our School Tech Hub so it could be cast in precious metal. It was great to be able to test students work to see what worked and what didn't to really push their design process insuring that they were able to design build able files that could be made a reality with 3D printing. At the beginning of 2016 we received our second Ember 3D printer. This was along with a cast able wax that could be printed. This was great because it meant that we could now test students work first in resin then go straight to wax. By having this all at the school and ran by students it meant that we were able to communicate with each other, help when peers were having problems and hopefully shorten the time that students could receive a wax model that they could take to casting. All of this was at no cost to the student, which helps so much in the early stages of design development. Sorry this has been a very wordy post, I wanted to make sure I explained everything to you to keep you up to date. I've been working on trying to collect some images to show you so you can see the sorts of projects that we undertake. I hope to follow this up soon with a link to our own Ember Tech Blog page and Instagram so keep an eye on my blog for updates! Thanks for reading!
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I've been meaning to make this post for a while now, but I think now is the best time to do so, as I am excited to tell you all that I have won an award for my entry into the Goldsmiths Craftsmanship and Design Awards! So backtracking a bit… for my first module on the Design For Industry course we were undertook a live brief for one of the categories in the Goldsmiths awards. The category was CAD Presentation. The brief was to design a movable object using computer aided design (CAD). The item created must utilise CAD to its fullest extent and showed the potential for manufacture in new technologies. When I first got this brief I looked at the things that inspire me most to influence my initial sketches, and then develop a design from there. I am really interested in nature but not in the traditional sense. I like looking at things which have structure, repeating patterns and symmetry. In the past I have looked at leaves and their intricate veins. This time however I wanted to look more at butterfly chrysalis's as I find them fascinating, and there are some very unusual tropical butterflies that have chrysalis's that look like gold! I really like drawing, so I did some studies from my mood board and my designs developed from there. I ended up looking at butterfly wings and developing a Chrysalis like form that opened and closed to reveal a beautiful Malachite gemstone. There is a multi functionality aspect to my design as it can be worn as a closed locket or an open necklace.
This blog was originally going to be separated into different posts for each different visit. But to make it more interesting for you guys I have compiled them together and given you a brief description/ visit review for you to get a feel for the different companies associated with the Design for Industry course. This post is in danger of becoming very long to try and include all the information for you. But if there's something I've missed out or if you're interested in hearing about a company in more detail please let me know in the comments and I will try to do another post about specific companies in more detail. |
AuthorSteff Wills: Archives
May 2017
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