As part of our Final Assignment we had to find SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) for a certain object. And for me I choose Romanesco Broccoli:)
Romanesco Broccoli have 2 type of pattern in total:
Spiral:
The Whole:
Form by repetitive Spiral Pattern
The Little Individual Buds:
Form by repetitive Spiral Pattern
Natural Fractal
Natural Phenomenon
Repeating pattern
expanding symmetry or evolving symmetry
Natural Fractal (Self Similar)
Replica exactly the same- Self-Similar
SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope)
This would be the two main pattern I would focus on:)
Starting our model making
Before going into model making I first started out with some research. My original idea was to make use of geometry shapes to craft out the idea of fractal. Meaning from on square, spit to two, then four and so on. So I went to do some research and test to see how people make use of geometry and the term fractal to create different model and i got some results like:
My initial idea was also to use origami to craft out the pattern, I begin by doing some rough sketch of my idea, but the result didn’t turn out well because it is way too hard to control the size of the origami. Even if i reduce the paper size by alot. The shape come out would eventually look similar to the previous one:(
After discussing it in class with Peter he told me that this geomery shape is too different from romanesco. Then I realized that I was probably too focus on the term fractal and forget that I have to use the fractal patter ON ROMANESCO to do my model and not fractal in general. He also told me that first you have to understand the structure and pattern carefully and understand it first so that your could craft it our base on it. Then I told him if I could use Styrofoam cone and poke pins on it?
I felt like it came out really bad, to be honest there is a limitation to the size of pins I could use. And therefore it is hard to create the little buds and intricate spiral of the romanesco:( Up till this point to be honest I was pretty worried about what more material I could used for the design. So the night before our submission while I was taking books from my sheleves I saw the bottle of silica gel! And I immediately thought Why not? It is small enough for me to create the spiral on the foam and it loos really small like the little buds!
And TADA my final:) the only part i’m not really happy is that I could probably get smaller Styrofoam of cut Styrofoam into smaller pieces so that it could filled up the empty portion and also create a more variation of unit sizes to look more like the pattern on romanesco. And also even though I’ve tried using smaller silica gel for the tip of the unite so it could have a variation of buds size but when the whole unit is done the small silica gel seems to blend in and go missing:( Nonetheless, I’ve tired and was pretty happy that I manage to use silica gel as a last minute material.