Rapid prototyping

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A lecture by Ben Kenezevic

Rapid prototyping is a pre-production of rapid manufacturing, also known as the layer technology, the freeform fabrication, or the 3D printer. That time compression process uses additive manufacturing technology, which consists in joining materials layers upon layers to create a 3D object.

It was originally invented in 1980 to create models and prototypes. However it promptly became the cheapest and quickest way of producing high-complexity objects. Rapid prototyping is nowadays renown for 3D constructions, and used by technicians, designers as well as fine artists. 30% of his worldwide production is used by the car industry. But product, medical and aerospace design remains main producers of that layer technology.

It permits to realize shapes which would ordinary be impossible to create. It has no geometrical limitation. Undercuts, hollow forms, thin wall castings…

That fully automated process is everything but time-consuming (70% quicker than any other technology), which helps reducing from half the cost productions.

The stereolythography, the fused deposition manufacturing, the 3D printing or the laminated object modelling are part of a wide range of additive technologies (using the layer system), which means, declensions of rapid prototyping process. Each of them use very specific material: metal, plastic, polymer, paper or even wax.

Except for the 3D printer, they all produce unicolor objects. However it remains possible to inject colours in the resin, and give the illusion of another material (e.g. Metal). A CAD file (computer aided design), which should use vectors, for a fine result, should be saved in .STL before being proceeded by the machine. Everything is automatic, and contingent on the complexity and the size of the object, the process could take from few hours to some days.

Rapid manufacturing is a technology that leads to astonishing results, due to his various applications. From solid to flexible materials, from simple to intricate shapes, used as well by artists and scientists, that cost-friendly process should remains for a while the leader of the pre-production area.

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Visual complexity and crime prevention

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A workshop with Paul Ekblom and Reading University

In education, a workshop is a brief intensive course, a seminar or a series of meetings emphasizing interaction and exchange of information among a usually small number of participants.

Last Thursday, Sadhna Jain and Annegrete Molhave, a former Phd student of St Martins, introduced us to Paul Ekblom, expert in crime prevention. The purpose of the workshop, in addition of meeting the Information design students of Reading University, was to try a representation of the complexity, through Ekblom researches.

The main idea was for him to condense all his researches in a web-based site or in a DVD.

This multimedia application should have contained: Knowledge about crime and safety, knowledge about what works and how to make it happens, and more than all how to involve people in implementing the action.

He introduced us to SARA, a problem-solving model which could be applied for any kind of issues: Scanning, Analysis, Response, Assessment.

Ekblom actually developed and went deeper in that process by creating the 5Is.

-Intelligence

-Intervention

-Implementation

-Involvement

-Impact

Follows a wide choice of innovating solutions

A huge process, which had to organize, represents all his ideas, and which should be both interactive and user-friendly.

He asked us to look in representing an appropriate complexity:

“Theories should be simple as possible but not simpler”, Einstein.

A free-access database website may helps reducing the impact of crime and disorders in the communities.The result of the day was a wide range of approaches and solutions developed by each group, and a nourishing debate with Ekblom on our ideas and a possible sustainability of the projects.