1 // Concept

 

As an experiment, I decided to use 3D printing as a tool to recreate parts of nature into our own physical environment.

 

2 // Process

 

_Sketching on Rhino

 

_3D printing

I chose the transparent filament because if it’s ability to show and diffuse the light and to give the texture and feel of the moonI had to go through three trials to get the sphere printed. When I settled on the Makerbot, I realized that while printing the sphere was falling apart. So I had to go back and add support and increase the shell number because I decided to decrease the filament size from 0.4 mm to 0.2 mm. The reason I chose to do this is because the layers were too obvious. The end result was not I wanted 100% because there was support within the sphere and I wanted it to be hollow.

The problem was it was too fragile. It is hard for the machine to execute a hollow sphere with holes on the shell as well. The support was hard to be removed without breaking the sphere itself.

 

_Materials

I added white LEDs with 3V coin batteries for energy. I used translucent paper to diffuse the light from LED. I experimented with 2 thicknesses and textures but later opted for the lighter one. The initial goal was to cover the sphere from inside with the paper then adde the lights. Since the support created obstacles to reach out to the holes,  I crumpled the paper and placed it from outside. Fortunately, the texture was interesting enough to give some kind of cosmic feel.

 

3 // Outcome

 

 

4 // Future iterations

After adjusting the machine settings, I would like to go back to rhino and try increasing the thickness of the sphere with the boolean difference. Hopefully, by doing so I will not have to add the support. Also, I would like to experiment by adding different colors of transparent filaments into one sphere as an attempt to represent other planets.