If you’re a small business owner, exhibiting at a trade show is something that can really boost your business. Not only will you meet lots of prospective clients and buyers, but those places are always packed with members of the press. I’ve been to a handful of ICFFs, Stationery Shows, NeoCons, and lots of art fairs — and let me tell you, your booth design makes all the difference.
When it comes to trade shows, your booth matters more than your product. So what does it take to create a booth everyone wants to visit? Well it isn’t easy, but it’s certainly attainable.
Just ask Made on Jupiter, the digital fabrication specialist branch of New Zealand based design collective Jupiter Jazz.
Their latest project was the Puffer, a cumulus-cloud looking trade show booth developed for Siggraph Asia. The time lapse video above shows the assembly of over 1000 uniquely shaped cones to create the booth.
Using digital fabrication to explore new forms for shoes.
These experimental shoes by designer Cat Potter were shaped from solid blocks of wood with a 3-axis CNC milling machine. Afterwards, metal hinges and closures were added to make the shoe functional. The digital files were made by DotSan.
From the designer:
Using wood in conjunction with milling machines has allowed me to explore shape without being restricted by traditional shoe components like insole boards, shanks or toe and heel puffs. Using a scanned 3D model of a last has allowed me to trace the silhouette form of the foot on the inside, diffusing its profile on the outside.
Overshadowed somewhat in recent years by laser cutting and 3D printing, CNC routing remains a fabrication technology with enormous potential. It can be used with more materials than 3D printing and creates 3D shapes more easily than laser cutting. These ten examples show this technique at its best.
What do you do when there is a giant CNC mill just waiting to be used? Giant Scrabble of course. This enormous board game was made by those clever students at MIT.
Here’s a nifty little line-following robot from Let’s Make Robots. The tech is pretty commonplace: two light sensors watch for a line of black tape and instruct two drive motors which way to turn. As is often the way with DIY electronics projects, the real creativity comes with the case design and finishing.
Modeled after a robot from an episode of the The Simpsons, the Chief Knock-A-Homer is CNC-cut and hand painted. The maker ‘psychofreaky’ goes into plenty of detail to explain his finishing techniques: valuable information for any aspiring DIYers.
Earlier this month Miami was invaded by celebrities, gallerists, museum directors, designers, and lots of rich people for the 10th annual Art Basel Miami Beach.
This international contemporary art fair has spawned countless satellite fairs, events, launches, exhibitions, and parties. I stopped in Midtown Miami’s Design District to check out one them: Graffiti Gone Global.
Now in it’s fifth year, GGG was developed by restaurant entrepreneur Shimon Bokovza to celebrate urban culture.
The statement piece of the show was a cumulous cloud looking aluminum structure entitled ‘Labyrs Frisae’ by architect and designer Marc Fornes. Although I assume the 256 sheets of metal were CNC cut, the aesthetic is in line with what The Economist calls the “organic look” of 3D printed designs.
Zero-waste construction enabled by digital manufacturing processes
If you thought this structure looks a little like one of those highly engineered, digitally manufactured, Architect-driven projects… you’d be spot-on.
It took the combined brain power of Pablo Zamorano, Nacho Marti and Jacob Bek to make the magic happen for the Expandable Surface Pavilion.
Produced as a meeting room for the SPOGA furniture design exhibition in Cologne, Germany, one of the notable features of this design is a clever use of what’s been termed zero-waste construction. The structure can be scaled to suit specific requirements of various spaces, and will retain its form without any need for additional framework or supports.
Click through for a brief construction time-lapse video.
Digital form generators get behind physical product designsNY designers thefuturefuture jumped on CNC routing as soon as it became a Personal Factory feature. Their first project is a flat-pack end table. The duo of Brandt Graves and Carrie McKnelly (also of SoftLab) are very excited about the availability of CNC routing service and the possibilities that it offers to outputting their design skills. Their next step is combining their experience in design for 3D printing with CNC routing to create products that explore the merging of the two fabbing methods.
Experienced with laser cutting and 3D printing and having access to both technologies, thefuturefuture partners were a little stumped when it came to CNC milling. Before it was on offer through the Personal Factory, the designers had to rely on favours from friends with access to the machinery, which was an unreliable process that resulted in more frustration that progress.
The end tables are CNC cut from ½” Baltic Birch. The parts are then thoroughly sanded; top surface painted, sanded and stained. Post processing is involved and the time it takes has to be taken into account when designing a product for production, especially when there’s a substantial volume of order to fulfil.
Rob Bell, a maker with a professional background in software development has creates interesting temporary structures with Sketchup Pro and a Shopbot CNC Router. His clever joinery details allow the structures to be assembled without the use of tools.
More images and video after the jump… (more…)
Ultra-realistic visualisation for milling, routing, drilling and more.
No matter how careful you are, mistakes can still happen. Surprises seem to have a way of popping up even after the most thorough preparations.
So instead of taking chances with that precious, expensive material you’ve been hoarding, how about simulating to your heart’s content before firing up the machine for the final cut?
Developed with the machining industry in mind, the CncSimulator provides full 3d visuals featuring a vast array of cutting tools and CNC machining processes. Still in the beta stages, the program contains a growing catalogue of CNC machine profiles so that users can refine the data to suit their own setup for an authentic, realistic simulation.
Who knows, perhaps some time down the line there will be add-in modules for DIY CNC devices to be simulated as well! Would this change how you make your own stuff? Or is “let’s see what happens this time” an important part of the fun when it comes to DIY digital manufacturing…
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