5 More Concepts

Concept 6

I was influenced by my light testing and came up with this concept.

This MP3 player consists of two cubes, one inside the other. The inside cube has LEDs inside that light up in time to the music and shine through the outer cube. The outer cube is 3D printed in coloured PLA plastic, meaning that the inner cube is only visible when the LEDs shine. The inner cube could be replaced with a more interesting shape, or maybe the LEDs could light up in a particular pattern. From the outside this MP3 player looks like a boring old solid 3D printed cube.

Concept 7

This concept is based off this shape that I drew in ideation. The shape is influenced by the strings of the bass and the shape of a shield, that is ‘bravery’ (a lyric from the song).

This MP3 player is a table speaker. The curved legs support the head which houses the components including the LEDs and the speaker. In fact, the whole outside of the top projects sound. The LEDs shine upwards through the top of the speaker, glowing as a jellyfish might. An interesting function could be legs that allow movement to change the position or height of the speaker.

Concept 8

My eighth concept is based of the head ornaments that cherokee people wear. These head ornaments are head bands with leaves/feathers tucked into them. My concept is a 3D printed ring with laser cut triangular pieces that slot into it. These pieces have the speaker grill on the inside. There is a ring of LED lighting around the middle of the inside of the ring so the whole object glows from the inside.

Concept 9

This concept is based off the waveform pattern like my first concept.

 

The spine could be 3D printed in Ninjaflex which is a material that can bend slightly. This would mean it wasn’t rigid and the user could play with it without worrying about breaking it. The horizontal slotting pieces would be laser cut. The spine fits into a base which holds the components and has the 3.5mm jack.

Light Test 2

Here I tested light through much thinner pieces of 3D printed material. I was testing how white light reacted with different colours of PLA plastic.

Light Test 1

One requirement for the MP3 player is that it has to use LEDs in some way. I played around with some 3D printed objects and projected light through them using a simple LED circuit I made.

My first test was to see what effects cylindrical and spherical shapes had with light from an LED. The blue section in the left cube is a cylindrical section that has been cut out of the cube. This is where the LED will sit and project light from the centre of the cube, through the plastic outwards. The cube on the right is the same idea, except this time I’ve used a spherical end to the cylinder to see if light will project differently through a more curved shape.

I will print the cubes this way up so the printer doesn’t have to print any overhanging bits that would require supports, but when I insert the LED I will invert the cube so you can’t see the hole in the cube and so the LED will be hidden.

The cubes printed well but they were too thick so the light from the LED in my circuit didn’t show through them.

I then tested the cubes with the light from my phone in a darker environment. This light was quite a bit brighter than the light from my LED circuit.

The cylindrical/spherical shapes inside the two different cubes made no difference – the light reacted in the same way in each cube. When I turned the cube upside down, i.e. with the light trying to come up through a solid face, there was considerable less light coming through, showing that the hollow section definitely made a difference.

This is the cube upside down

Because the MP3 player is not designed to be only used in such a dark environment like the one I was testing in, I also tried this test in various light conditions. With ambient lighting the LED light still showed through the cube, but when a light was trained directly on the cube it was quite a bit harder to see.

Something else I noticed was that the light acted differently depending on the orientation of the cube. In each image the LED is shining right in the centre of the cube. In the image on the left the fill of the cube is parallel to the LED light, whereas in the picture on the right, where the light is a lot more obvious, the fill is perpendicular to the light.

The opposite is true on the top of the cube. When the fill runs parallel to the light the top of the cube is light up, but when the light has to pass through more layers of fill, i.e. when it is perpendicular to the light, the top is completely black.

I also noticed that when the fill is running parallel to the light, the light can be very concentrated, and can highlight an individual section of the fill. Obviously as the fill density increases (i.e. the grid inside the cube gets tighter) the LED will light up more than one section.

This could be used to generate a pattern of light in my MP3 player. A grid of LEDs could be used beneath the MP3 player, with the fill running parallel to the LEDs, and the LEDs could flash at different times or flash in a pattern to highlight different parts of the player.

 

Electronic Circuit

In a Fablab tutorial I made a basic electric circuit. The function of the circuit was to turn an LED on and off with a button. I made the circuit on a breadboard which involves pushing each component into holes on a board in a certain way so that all components line up and the circuit flows correctly. The breadboard is an easy way to test electronic circuits before soldering components together more permanently.

There were four main components in this circuit: the LED, the power source, a resistor and the button. The LED (light emitting diode) makes light, the power source powers the circuit, the resistor controls the amount of current going into the LED so as to make sure it doesn’t short, and the button toggles the on/off of the LED.

I also used an Arduino Uno micro-controller that would allow future adjustments to the circuit to be made more easily, for example if I wanted the LED to flash. These adjustments are made in computer code that is sent to the Arduino controller, which means that I wouldn’t have to fiddle around with physical components if I wanted to change something in the circuit.

I had some problems with the circuit to begin with. The LED wouldn’t turn on but I could tell that the button wasn’t the problem because when I pressed it I could see that a signal was being sent to the Arduino by way of a flashing light. After replacing some of the components, I worked out that the problem was the LED which was broken. After replacing that it worked.

I also learnt how to correctly use the Fablab soldering stations. I had soldered before, but at high school with sub-par equipment and minimal health and safety procedures.

Digital Fabrication Workflow

For the first project I think I managed my time reasonably well and the amount of work I was doing didn’t increase significantly towards the end of the assignment. However, I wasn’t happy with the end product I’d designed. This was because I hadn’t done enough iterations to generate a product I was happy with.

For this second project I will do more work and make more iterations every week. This will mean my project is more varied and my product is more developed, ensuring I get to an end product that I’m more satisfied with. I will spend more time sketching and 3D modelling to generate more ideas. I find sketching quicker than 3D modelling but a 3D model is easier to understand. I will need to find a balance between the two processes so I can spend my time in the best way to generate the most iterations. UPDATE: During my MP3 player project I’ve discovered a good way to spiral develop is to draw over pictures of 3D models. I was able to quickly generate a few ideas about how the components will fit into my model without having to draw the whole model each time or 3D model the components.

One workflow process that will be important to follow in this project is spiral development. This means that each part of the product (in this case the case, circuitry, switch etc.) will be developed constantly throughout the project, as opposed to developing one bit at a time and ending up with an amazing case but a un-working circuit for example. Each part of the end product will function well and look how I want it to.

I’ll ensure that I talk about the technical aspect of the digital fabrication process as well as the reasons behind my choices in terms of function and aesthetics on my blog. It’s important to take notes and put stuff on the blog often so I’m constantly developing my product and so I’m getting the ideas out of my head onto a page that my peers can see and comment on.

Initial MP3 Player Concepts

Concept 1

My first concept is based off the patterns I found in the waveforms of the song ‘Cherokee’.

I incorporated the waveform pattern into the lines on the outside of the MP3 player. The shape is influenced by some of the shapes I generated while listening to the song and from the shapes in my mood boards. This MP3 player would sit in the user’s breast pocket or somehow connect to their shirt.

Concept 2

My second concept comes from a particular shape I generated while I was listening to Cherokee. The shape consists of a drum hi-hat with lines that represent the individual voices in the choral opening to Cherokee.

The MP3 player consists of two halves that sit on the top and bottom of the ear and which are connected by some sort of spring mechanism that allows slight movement.

Concept 3

This concept combines the form of the trumpet with the feather head ornaments that the Cherokee people wear. There is a button switch on the end that toggles the LED which lights up the trumpet, shining through three sections of clear acrylic. The ‘feathers’ could be laser-cut wood pieces which slot together.

Concept 4

My fourth concept is based off a peanut-like shape I generated.

It is similar to an existing speaker-system, the UE Boom, in its size and function – it sits on a table and plays music. The speaker grill is three slits on each side of the MP3 player, the LED sits next to the 3.5mm minijack on the side of the layer and is toggled by the switch on the end.

Concept 5

My fifth concept takes those individual choral voices again from the beginning of Cherokee and turns them into finger-like lines. The lines, like the voices in the song, have their own movement and direction. I think it would be cool if this MP3 player design attached to the user’s belt somehow.

That hole on one of the ‘fingers’ in the bottom picture is the 3.5mm jack.

Moodboards

MP3 Players

Jazz

Cherokee people, culture, art

Song 2: Cherokee

Cherokee is a 1930s jazz piece written by Ray Noble. Noble (1903-1978) was an English bandleader, composer, arranger, radio comedian and actor. Noble originally wrote Cherokee as the first movement of a five-movement suite entitled ‘Indian Suite’. The Cherokee are a Native American tribe indigenous to the Southeastern United States, who now live on reservations in Oklahoma and North Carolina.

Cherokee became a jazz standard (that is, a well-known and widely performed piece of music in jazz musicians’ repertoire) because of its long chord sequence, fast tempo and tricky key changes in the middle, which made musicians want to play it so people would notice them. Cherokee was recorded by Charlie Parker, the Count Basie Orchestra, Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan (1955), Dakota Staton (1958), Art Tatum and Keely Smith, and has been covered as an instrumental by Bud Powell (1950), Clifford Brown, Don Byas, Stan Getz, Lionel Hampton, Harry James, and by Johnny Smith on his album Moonlight in Vermont.

One of my favourite arrangements of Cherokee is by Kamasi Washington:

The band consists of Kamasi Washington, Tenor Saxophone; Ryan Porter, Trombone; Brandon Coleman, Keyboards/Organ; Miles Mosley, Electric Bass; Robert Miller, Drums; and Patrice Quinn, Vocals. I like this arrangement because it is much more modern than the original. It is fun and funky.

The lyrics are:

“Brave Indian Warrior, since first I met you
I can’t forget you, Cherokee sweetheart

Child of the prairie, your love keeps calling
My heart enthralling, Cherokee

Dreams of summertime, of lovertime gone by
Throng my memory so tenderly, and sigh. My

Brave Indian Warrior, one day I’ll hold you
My arms enfold you, Cherokee”

I did the same listening-and-drawing technique to generate ideas like I did with the first song, but this time I drew on baking paper and then overlaid images to see what forms I could make. I also included some words as inspiration. The MP3 player could, for example, have elements of ‘bravery’, ‘summertime’ or ‘India’ incorporated into it.

I wanted to investigate the shapes and patterns made by the waveforms of the actual song so I put the MP3 file into Audacity and took a screen capture of the waveforms. I found that when I zoomed in I could find some interesting patterns in the music. I could implement these into my initial concepts.

Waveform of whole song

Zoomed waveform of ending. I liked the pattern

Song 1: Yesterdays

For this second assignment we’re required to design and make a “conceptual MP3 player inspired by a particular piece of music”.

The first song I tried to draw inspiration from was jazz-pianist Hampton Hawes’ arrangement of the 1933 jazz standard ‘Yesterdays’. I listened to the song and at the same time drew whatever came to my head on a piece of paper. I then drew over those shapes, patterns and forms to generate some less-abstract shapes that could be initial shapes for a conceptual MP3 player.

I found it hard to generate imagery and ideas from this piece of music because it was mainly piano and had no lyrics. I have an idea for a song that I might get more inspiration from and enjoy more.

Worldviews

Māori visual and material culture has been framed by predominantly western accounts. Since the first contact between Māori and Europeans, Māori art and culture has been analysed and critiqued by Europeans, and there was great “disruption of the Māori art tradition from the cataclysmic experience of colonisation” (Mane-Wheoki 7, 9). Māori artists became more self-conscious, more aware of the differences between their art and the art of the European settlers who they were in awe of. Early records of Māori were taken “through the eyes of [European] men and mostly about the activities of men” (Anderson, Binney, and Harris 133). Therefore, documentation of early arts and crafts are limited.

This wooden sculpture (1965) was carved by New Zealand artist Arnold Manaaki Wilson of Māori (Ngāi Tūhoe, Te Arawa) descent. It is a representation of the prophet Rua Kenana. When considering this piece from a Māori worldview, we can consider the tikanga (customs) that would have been performed when cutting the tree, the kaitiaki (guardians) of this work who have an obligation to protect it from harm and misuse. The sculpture is very modern and geometric, unlike the curvilinear forms of the late Māori era. It is obviously influenced by Western art, particularly by “the abstracted, biomorphic aesthetic of Constantin Brâncuşi, Henry Moore, and Barbara Hepworth” (Mane-Wheoki par. 5).

Te Mihaia te Tuatahi (The First Messiah)

 

Works cited:
Anderson, Atholl, Judith Binney, and Aroha Harris. Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2014. Print.

Mane-Wheoki, Jonathan. ‘Art’s Histories in Aotearoa New Zealand’. Journal of Art Historiography 4 (2011). Print.

Mane-Wheoki, Jonathan. ‘The Class of ’66’. Off the Wall Mar. 2013. Print.

Wilson, Arnold Manaaki. Te Mihaia te Tuatahi. Wood sculpture. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington. Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History. By Atholl Anderson, Judith Binney and Aroha Harris. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2014. Print.