RESEARCH & PROCESS

Part 1

Reference SEM Photo Chosen: Bee Eyes

Decided to go ahead with this photo as I thought it would be interesting to replicate.

We had to either use organic or manufactured materials and I went ahead with Barley seeds as I felt like it would be able to replicate the structure of the SEM Photo.

I glued the seeds onto a piece of scrap fabric and arranged it in a way that I thought, would look like the SEM photo. After I was done, I realised that there was a pointy/sharp needle-like structures that should be inserted in between these seeds to make it look like the photo. However, since the seeds were really small, it was tough to find a thin enough needle-like material to be placed in between the seeds as the scale would not match up to the one in the photo.

Hence, I decided to go ahead with another material that was bigger in size so that I could use wires to duplicate the effect of the SEM photo. I went with these peas. I hot glued them together onto a piece of organza fabric. This fabric helps to not distract the form that I was going for since it was transparent and light enough to be manipulated how I wanted it to. The structure in the SEM photo shows a slight curve in the form.

Hence, whilst glueing the peas together, I place a circular metal bowl underneath so that the structure that I was creating would take the curved form of the bowl. I then inserted wires in between the peas by bending these wires such that the ends of it act as a stopper for it not to come through the fabric. To secure it in place, hot glue gun was used.

Part 2

In this part, we had to create a Bio-Radiator for Emiko. As I was researching on cooling devices, I came across quite a few cooling techniques that could be incorporated into the design of the final outcome. I narrowed it down to three:

Option 1: Fiber Reinforced Polyester

Option 2: HVAC Tech Caloric Compound

Option 3: CAU-10-H

I went ahead with Option 3 as I thought the concept of it was intriguing.

These were the functions of Option 3 and how it works as a cooling device:

The unused, existing heat from Emiko was used to run the  energy-efficient cooling system.

FUTURE BENEFITS

In addition to that, in the future, this would be very effective and useful due to global-warming. This material is eco-friendly in terms of production and is able to make use of waste heat energy instead of normal cooling systems that produces waste but are of no use.

I used this spun cotton ball to suggest the compressed solid form of the powder form of the CAU-10-H.

To add to the cooling effect, I used these beads below that suggests that they are cooling crystals.

To further refine the idea of cooling effect for Emiko, I decided to use white acrylic plastic sheets which are good reflectors of light to reflect the light away from Emiko. I also used embossing foils since they are good radiators of heat, allowing Emiko to keep cool.

I decided to settle on a headpiece as my wearable since I’ve always liked the avant garde head pieces that I come across online. Furthermore, the head is the at the top which means that it is exposed to the sun the most. Hence, it makes sense that that should be the wearable piece to create to aid Emiko’s overheating problem.

Upon going through tons and tons of photos, I finally narrowed down my references to these three images.

Since I was unfamiliar with headpiece forms, I tried to recreate Image 1 as above.

This was my attempt to create a base structure of it first.

I was not in favour of how it looked and the idea of having an enclosed headpiece. So I experimented with the other forms.

I combine Image 2 and 3 as I really liked the form of Image 3. However, since Emiko was an AI based in Japan, I decided that I wanted to have it to adopt design elements influenced by Japanese aesthetics.

I attempted to create the folds with felt and acrylic plastic sheets. I liked how it looks but I decided to continue experimenting as I was not a 100% sure that this would be the style that I wanted to go with since it did look a little too bulky for my liking.

Hence, I decided to develop a structure first to fit it to the head then work from there.

I then explored the different ways I could incorporate the fan-like structure that was inspired by Japanese culture.

I still very much liked the structure of Image 1 above in amongst my reference image in terms of how the fan-like effect increased in size.

I tried to create a base structure such as that in the image below. I attempted to replicate the fan-like structure using individual pieces of acrylic plastic sheets that were cut carefully to show the increase in size. This was my attempt at attaching it to the base structure.

In the images above, the individual fan-like panes are attached the structure by puncturing it through the panes and twisting i around the base structure. The top of the wire was curved to serve as a stopper for the panes too.

However, it looked really messy and did not provide the more minimal look that I prefer.

Therefore, I experimented with a few different ways to attach the panes to the structure. This was the toughest part to craft as I found it a challenge to let the panes stay up without much support since it does get flimsy as it increases in size. Another problem I had was having to manipulate the arrangement of the fan-like panes to follow  curvature form of the base structure.

These are my attempts:

I thought it could still use improvements in terms of the attachment of the fan-like panes to the base structure. I finally thought of a ring attachment made by wires.

FINAL PROJECT EXECUTION

Afterwards, it was time to put the elements together to form my final piece.

This was after cutting the individual fan-like panes and attaching it to the base structure.

I covered the base piece with a black ribbon as I felt like the silver wire against the silver foil and white sheets were a little too muted and blend.

The panes were cut in a way that it would bend very slightly to follow the curve of the structure so that it would look more interesting from other angles as it provided variation.

This was the adaptation of Part 1 into Part 2. I pierced a matchstick through the spun cotton ball. The matchstick is the requirement for the organic material. 

A detachable nose piece made out of wire and beads that suggests it to be cooling crystals was also made.

FINAL OUTCOME

REFLECTIONS

This particular project was challenging as there were many factors that had to be considered. Apart from the structure & aesthetics of it, we had to factor in the proper measurements so that it would fit the model. Also, the fact that we had to consider the bio-radiator factor in to incorporate it into the design.

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