Last Thursday, April 17th 2008, Adam Fure from Greg Lynn Form dropped by sci-Arc to discuss the first phase of file prep for fabrication. The Blobwall Pavilion is made up of four hundred bricks in which the design for a single brick was inspired by a plastic toy that fascinated Greg Lynn. A team of students from sci-Arc have volunteered to work on the exhibit from beginning to end. Their tasks from now until the opening of the installation will be outlined in the following:
1. Preparing files for each brick so it can transferred and readable when opened with the CNC software.
This task includes:
a. Plugging in the final brick geometry into an existing Maya animation file
b. Exporting a catalogue of iges files into Rhino
c. Orienting the geometry for CNC robot software
d. Exporting and cataloguing individual cut files
2. Programming the Tool Path which will instruct a robotic arm to custom cut each brick.
a. Importing .iges files into robot software
b. Generating CNC code for cutting of bricks with a 6-axis robot
3. Robotic cutting of bricks
a. Assisting in cutting bricks with robotic arm
4. Assembly:
a. Delivering cut bricks from Machineous to sci-Arc
b. Organizing storage of bricks for orderly access
c. Welding plastic bricks (approx. 15 bricks a day)
d. Painting gallery walls
e. Hanging Bubble Cabinets
f. Breaking down brick aggregate into panels
g. Wrapping and packaging Blobwall components for shipping
This site will document each stage of the process from beginning to end and bring you photographic and written updates for the Blobwall Pavillion. Let the blobbing begin.
