Second skin

OK, second skin. For this project I had a good hard think about where my design interests and my interests in human anatomy lie and I have decided to look at the larynx, specifically vocal opening. I was interested in the that area due to a musical background and I wanted to understand how it works. So Ive started researching the larynx and the vocal chords to see what additions could be made to the human larynx.

Here are some images Ive studied to help me understand the larynx


Larynx Model





 

Shapeways delay

Unfortunatly my shapeways model isnt likely to arrive until early june. I uploaded it on the 17th of may and planned to purchase it but I was a tad too poor then on friday the 18th I was going to send it with a group to make it affordable but I missed the send off and had to send it on my own. So on friday night after a call to mummy and daddy begginfg for money so I could buy my model I finally was able to buy it. shapeways said it should ship before the 5th of June so Im hoping it gets here sooner.

photos and render

So all printed (except for the ideal ring) and ready to be handed in.

Here are my photos

And here is the render of my shapeways model

Ideal fit

My ideal ring I changed my mind on having repeating elements throughout it. I wanted it to be chaotic an erratic. much like I find myself becoming with the 2nd year workload. For being an ideal fit, I investigated the tolerances from my earlier prints and found the best fit for my finger. I printed the internal diameter to see how it would fit  and it seemed pretty ideal. I then started on the aesthetic of the ring. I worked on chaotic edges and ridges and came up with an aesthetic that was looked like a crazy gear.

                              

I liked it as a concept but It would have been extremely uncomfortable on the my other fingers, which is hardly ideal. I refined the edges and made it a more comfortable ring. I liked the textures and the facets created by the quite random pattern.

So off to shapeways with my ring, I plan to do it in alumide due to its low cost. I would have loved to do it in stainless steel or silver but the meagre amount students receive from study link can only go so far                                    

Largest possible fit

My largest possible fit idea came from my original precedents. . . Sort of. My initial idea was to have the ring composed of free rolling ball bearings designed to look like eyes. I produced a test of this to see how small I could produce the ball bearing and tried balls of 2 mm radius and 1.5 mm radius. However I found that at that size they didn't rotate or they just barely moved.

I had already started on my ring for this design and I still like the idea of repeating spheres so I adjusted my design so they didn't rotate but the spheres were the part that held the finger and the ring surface didn't touch the skin. I came up with this model.

I had it printed and found that the spheres made light refraction on the ring look very interesting. the fit wasn't quite right so I adjusted it and used it for my final.

Tightest possible fit

After sketching I started working on getting a design for the tightest fit ring. I produced a few test prints to get the sizing right and I found that the resin was quite flexible and wouldn't break as long as it was supported by repetition within the structure. So I worked on that idea for my model and with the scans from my finger mould I came up with a ring design I quite liked.

I made the ring itself circular but upon printing I the fit was not far from ideal so I worked with my finger scans and used  the profiles from that to make it anatomically correct and "fitted" to my finger. I also physically tested the ring I printed to see its durability and it wasn't nearly as strong as I thought it was. So I decided that If It was going to be as thin as it was it would need more support.

I worked on another design that was a done to the finger scans to create as tighter fit as I could. and after a bit of work I came up with this model that became my final model. I wanted to make the supporting bars as thin as possible which made it quite worrying when I first took it off my finger but due to the number of bars it is quite strong

The ring fits tightly but is still able to come off my finger fairly easily.

Problems

So after we  made moulds of our fingers I unfortunately was sick for a few days which meant I was not only behind my finger mould went missing so I had to do that again. But I finished that and sliced it up and was able to start making some ring designs. I changed my precedents quite a bit because I changed my mind on my overall aesthetic. I didn't want the form to be too over designed and I wanted it to be comfortable. So I went to the sketch book and produced a whole lot of sketches looking at mostly inorganic structure and repetition. Here area few pages from my sketchbook