The Fabrication Commons:
Creative Agency Through Intuitive Interfaces, Part 2
An M.Arch Thesis by Aleks Gontarz
<<< Read Part 1
Chapter 3: Prototypes
This thesis examines the individual elements of fabrication and analyzes how they are connected — or how they often fail to connect. Six interface tool prototypes are designed to bridge the gaps between the elements themselves, and between the elements and the user. In a community where every individual is empowered to design and fabricate anything they need (shifting from a consumer to a prosumer), the role of the traditional designer can shift to that of a meta-designer. This is someone who facilitates these interactions, and curates the amount and difficulty of content for newer users.
I have selected five criteria for success for these prototypes, shown at the end of each project. The prototype is ranked based on: how engaging it is, how intuitive it is, if it lowers an accessibility barrier of some sort, if it encourages a dialogue between users, and if it has the ability to adapt to user needs.
The title page of each prototype also has a diagram illustrating which elements of the ecosystem are being linked together, and a QR code and URL that leads to a webpage with the resources and instructions required to recreate the prototype.
PROTOTYPE 1: Collaborative Creation
How can we engage multiple people into the digital design process? Most forms of digital design revolve around creating a virtual 2d or 3d representation of the design on a computer monitor using a mouse and keyboard. There is a physical frame of reference that is lost when using such digital peripherals when compared to an analog design process like drawing, molding or cutting. There is also a social, collaborative aspect that digital design makes much more difficult. By making digital design more physical and full-scale again, it can become a more social activity. Where there is an open exchange of ideas, there will be people of all skill levels interested in joining and learning.
The first prototype aims to do this by using a reactive, tactile projection at full scale onto the working material. The outline of the design is projected, along with control points that react to nearby users’ fingers, and are activated once contact with the material is made. The interface is limited in what it can achieve, but playful and unintimidating to novices. Unlike a CAD software, no experience is necessary to operate it successfully because of an intuitive understanding of how things are moved physically. It is also a more social democratic mode of design, as there is no one person that is explicitly “in control” of the process at any one time.
This is done using a script, projector and hand tracker. When a hand is recognized, the closest control point expands or shrinks based on the distance to the index finger. When it is below a certain threshold, the control point activates, changes colour, and moves in sync with the finger. A next step for this prototype would be actually incorporating it into a digital fabrication tool, and adding some restrictions to the design, based on the limitations of the tool. By bypassing the obstacles that modern design tools can have, this prototype can hopefully make the design process less intimidating for new users, and make it more of a social activity.
Resources for Prototype 1: agontarz.com/p01/
PROTOTYPE 2: Custom Materials
How can we involve people in the creation of their own raw materials? An important step in designing something is choosing appropriate materials. There can be much consideration when it come to choosing a material — aesthetics, price, durability — however, the process that goes into making the raw material itself is sometimes unappreciated, and often inaccessible. If the mass customization of products is possible in Industry 4.0, a small selection of homogeneous materials shouldn’t be the limiting factor. Just as important is the environmental factor. By involving the prosumer in the creation of materials locally, material cycles become smaller geographically, and the final product becomes more sustainable.
Inspired by the Precious Plastics project (preciousplastic.com), Prototype 2 is an attempt to create unique, desirable raw materials from waste by-products of other digital fabrication processes. I collected some of my own 3d printing waste, and some more from the local maker space. Normally, these parts would be discarded and end up in a landfill. However, I turned them into desirable, workable raw material by shredding the parts, combining the colours that I wanted, heating, and finally pressing the heated form.
To get an output I was satisfied with, there was some experimentation with the colour and grain of the shredded plastic, the temperature, the duration of heating, and the pressure of the vice. Adding a clear plastic gave the purple and gold sheet an beautiful depth. Heating the blue sheet for longer and pressing down harder made the plastic creep outward, mixing more towards the edges. Now, they can be worked into a new product on a laser cutter or CNC machine. A brand-new life cycle is created for the material, and possibly more if it becomes reworked into something new again.
A future version of this experiment would be fine tuning this process of changing all of the variables to make the output reliable and consistent. And of course, incorporating a large heated press. Much like the Precious Plastics project is aiming to do, this process would be supported by a community of people with excess waste and a feeling of responsibility to the environment. Even if these community members are not makers, the prospect of creating something new and unique from their junk may be incentive enough to do so. This prototype adds a new layer of customizability, and gives users a better appreciation of material life cycles.
Resources for Prototype 2: agontarz.com/p02/
PROTOTYPE 3: Open Construction Kit
Can an open source, expandable kit of hardware make people excited to create and share designs? A core value of maker culture is the idea of openly sharing information (Hatch, 2013). It is important to not only make information accessible (such as digital design files), but encourage others to modify or improve this information, and finally sharing their own experiences and resources. Capitalism is protective about this, believing that information ownership is a zero-sum game (Rifkin 2015). Collaboratism however, believes that a common pool of informational resources that is constantly improving is of greatest importance.
Prototype 3 is a reusable kit of 3D printable hardware that is designed to attach to sheet material of any dimensions with minimal tooling. Inspired by the spirit of “adhocism”, this kit works best with discarded scrap material such as plywood, to repurpose it into something useful. The oversized details and playful colours are designed to convey exactly how it is put together, and encourage even the least handy people to try to build their own structures. I used this kit to create two furniture-like pieces that were custom built exactly for my needs (pictured below). The first is a desk divider with shelves and a lamp mount. The second is a partition that holds 3D printing equipment on one side, and coats on the side facing the entry area of the studio.
The main module of the Open Construction Kit is are the colourful “buttons” that screw together, holding any number of attachments on either side. A wrench can also be printed to tighten these together. The only necessary tool to have is a drill with a hole saw bit. The parts are designed to be easily fabricated on the most entry-level 3D printers, with simple settings and lack of support material. The parts can be made-to-order for each project, or disassembled and reused.
Even with the flexibility of such a system, there is no way for myself, as a sole designer, to anticipate every user’s needs. Naturally, the next step is to share these designs with others. Ideally, they would be encouraged to develop and share their own designs and modifications. Below I’ve illustrated some more possible user contributions to the kit. This can be done locally, but would have a much bigger impact on an online sharing platform such as Thingiverse. The Open Construction Kit is not only is this a straightforward way to engage new users into making something larger, but also encourages making social connections and exemplifies the benefits of a sharing information.
Resources for Prototype 3: agontarz.com/p03/
PROTOTYPE 4: Smart Material Library
How can people gain a better understanding of what impact different materials have on a project? Material selection can be extremely intimidating for a inexperienced maker. Each material has a unique set of properties that can benefit or hinder a project; such as durability, malleability, density, flexibility, hardness, etc. These properties not only affect the kinds of applications that are best suited for each material, but what tools and strategies are required to work with them. Even a material as seemingly straightforward as wood, there are hundreds of species which each behaves and reacts in its own way. (Shebani et al. 2009) For an experienced maker, material considerations often still require a great deal of research.
The Smart Material Library is a device and collection of samples that can not only give relevant information about materials, but show the information in relation to the user’s particular project. When the user chooses the physical sample of the material and places it in the device, it will apply the material properties to their project, renders it live, and calculates metrics such as its weight, price, and carbon footprint. With this prototype, a user can have the experience of physically examining a real sample of the chosen material, instead of designing with an abstract understanding of it. They can then fully take advantage of a material database with computational abilities.
The prototype consists of three samples, a receptacle, and a script which outputs the relevant information on a monitor. I chose three materials which are common but have varying properties. Attached to these samples are plastic caps which have RFID tags hidden inside, giving each sample a unique ID code. Inside the main enclosure is an Arduino microcontroller, an RFID reader and a rotary knob. When a sample is placed in the device, the material’s ID is sent over to the computer.
On the computer side, the script gathers the ID data and cross-references it with the library of information that I organized. This consists of a digital material textures and a spreadsheet with metrics such as density, cost, thickness. The script applies the corresponding texture and thickness to modify the user’s current project — in this case, a simple chair. The chair is rotated by the position of the rotary knob, and a rendering plugin is used to give an almost instantaneous visualization. At the same time, the new volume of the 3d model is taken, and using the previous metrics, more information can be computed. In this case the weight, price, and carbon footprint (in CO2e) is calculated and displayed for the user with a UI plugin. This entire process happens within a matter of seconds of the user placing a sample in the device.
A smart material library such as this could prove to be beneficial in many environments. People that have interacted with this prototype mentioned that they could envision this to be a tool for designers and their clients to have an interactive discourse about materials for their projects. For the fabrication commons that I am proposing, I believe that this tool would provide insight and depth to the material selection process of novices and advanced makers alike.
A future version of this prototype would not only be integrated with the user’s projects, but fully integrated with the fabrication commons ecosystem as well. Each material can correspond to actual available stock within the commons, or connect the user with someone that has experience and extra material to share. Materials from different industries would all converge in this system, like textiles, woodworking, or ceramics. Other features of this new version would allow it to perform more complex calculations. For example, it would include the ability to create assemblies out of multiple materials (pictured in diagram below), and inform the user about how they come together and function. Another possibility for the future version is the ability to run physical simulations to see how each material would perform structurally. Hopefully this can be an informational tool, simplify the making process, and encourage even experienced users to experiment with new materials and strategies.
Resources for Prototype 4: agontarz.com/p04/
PROTOTYPE 5: Tactile Designer
How can a user experience the entire design-fabrication workflow with no prior design or fabrication experience? Usually, the way new users are encouraged to use a digital fabrication tool (such as a 3D printer) is to find a ready-made file online to print. In my experience, I have noticed that once a new user prints a few models of their choosing, they lose interest, because they don’t see themselves as designers but merely as executors. This could be because they cannot imagine themselves actually designing an object that is truly adapted to their own needs are desires. This is why it is crucial to illustrate the entire workflow from start to finish, making it as simple as possible while still allowing the user to made decisions that will affect the final product.
The Tactile Designer is an interface tool that does exactly this. Users can choose from a wide variety of pieces, add them in any way they wish, and send it to the printer with the press of a button. The pieces are at the exact scale they will be printed, and display the final product on a screen as the user builds. When the green button is pressed, the program converts the model into code that is readable by the printer, and queues it up to print.
The Tactile Designer device is a white box with a plastic translucent panel on the top, and a series of buttons on the front. Inside the housing is a microcontroller, a USB hub, a webcam, and a strip of LED lights. The webcam streams the image from inside the box to a tracking program, illuminated by the LEDs to increase the contrast. When the user places a piece on top, the program translates the visual marker on the underside of the piece to an ID and coordinates. These are sent to a script which recreates a 3d version of the piece in the proper position and orientation. This is then displayed through a UI plugin in real time. The next step is to build on this one piece. When the user presses the “add” button, the position of the piece is locked in place. Subsequent presses will make new instances, and combine them into a single model.
When the user is satisfied with the model, they press the “print” button. When the button is pressed, a plugin generates printing instructions (gcode) within the script, saves this to a file, then runs a command for the computer to send the file to a local print server via API, that is already connected to the printer. Using a server such as this also allows us to bundle additional instructions to start printing right away without any additional user input.
The Tactile Designer could prove to be a useful tool in current makerspaces, and eventually in the proposed Fabrication Commons. It would be used by novice makers to become comfortable with the entire design-fabrication workflow. Also, it could be used by more experienced makers to quickly prototype rough ideas without the need to use more complex software. This prototype has some of the potential social benefits of prototype 1, where multiple people could be engaged in the design process at once.
This prototype has some limitations that could be improved upon in the next version.
First of all, it could support more than one type of material. This would also require a connection to a different fabrication tool or process for each material. The diagram below illustrates a design being dispatched to a 3D printer for plastic parts, and to a robotic arm that cuts wooden parts. Increased accuracy of the design could be achieved with a more intelligent system for snapping and dimensioning. The screen could be upgraded with an augmented reality overlay of the design on the surface of the table as its being built.
The Tactile Designer shows users the entire design-fabrication workflow in a clear, unintimidating way. With a series of pieces to choose from, a novice can create a unique shape without ever touching and code or advanced software.
Resources for Prototype 5: agontarz.com/p05/
PROTOTYPE 6: Robotic Coworking
How can a user work with a robot as a co-worker to produce something with both robotic and human traits? Digital fabrication tools are becoming more versatile, affordable, and user-friendly. A new type of robot. the collaborative robot or “cobot”, aims to be a tool that can safely work in the same space as a human user. However, the robotic arm still has a reputation from the first industrial revolutions as an unintelligent, ruthless machine. Much has changed since then: advances in sensing technology allows for these machines to have an awareness and adapt to their surroundings (He and Chen, 2018). This, combined with more human interfaces such as voice and touch, would allow for a more relaxed and productive relationship between the human and the robot. Building trust between the two parties is key to fully taking advantage of the strengths of both the human and the machine.
The primary focus on this prototype was the interaction between the user and the UR robot, and secondly was the product — clay, in this test — which is being modified by both the user and the robot. First, the user molds a piece of clay, and its shape is registered by a webcam with a simple vision system. The robot prompts the user to choose a tooling piece and hand it over. After checking in with the user again, the robot stamps around the perimeter of the clay.
The first stage of this system is vision over the workspace. A webcam is attached to the secondary cobot, sending the image to the script which then converts the image into a outline vector. Once the clay is represented digitally, any number of adaptive designs can be applied — in this case, a perpendicular stamping along the perimeter of the form.
The next challenge was to design a voice interface. I created a voice app using the Alexa Skills service, which interprets voice commands that it can send to a local script through a local server. The app interprets the user’s voice using “intents”, which can generally approximate the voice command to the nearest option that it is expecting (For example, “Start”, “Go”, “Go Ahead” would all be equated to the same command) In the local script, I wrote a simple dialogue tree with multiple options for the user, which would can lead to multiple outcomes for the robot’s actions (For example, “yes” starts the motion, ”no” exits the program.)
Finally, commands are sent to the robot or the gripper with a plugin through a hard-wired connection. When the user is finally ready for the tooling of the clay, the toolpaths are converted to commands in the native language of the robot.
Hopefully, robots will surpass their rigid applications in industrial settings, and find themselves in more spaces of public access in the future. This prototype creates a simple output that shows the contribution of both human and machine. However, it is limited to a small work area and a short interaction. A future version could expand on this process to create more exciting products. A fully three-dimensional awareness of the space that it is working in, as well as an awareness of the people sharing the space would be a desirable upgrade. This would make the process safer, and allow the robots to be animated towards the users. Most importantly, it would allow for a simultaneous workflow, where instead of a back-and-forth, the robots and users can be working on a project at the same time.
The full potential of collaborative robots can be taken advantage of using sensing and networking technology. By designing these interfaces, we can build trust and benefit from the unique combination of human creativity and decision making, with robotic precision and speed.
Resources for Prototype 6: agontarz.com/p06/
Chapter 4: Discussion
From my very limited testing, the prototypes successfully engaged the user by using simple intuitive interfaces. In addition, people were excited about the possible implications of these prototypes. Without a prompt, they imagined the types of people that would benefit from them and environments that they would be useful in. However, most students of architecture already have some experience with these processes. A logical next phase for testing would be in places where people of various skill levels would be, and possible new makers could be initiated with the help of the prototypes: places such as libraries, community centres, museums, or makerspaces.
Each prototype attempts to combine and lower the barriers between the user and a combination of other elements of the design-fabrication process. They each focus on some of the aspects that make up the spirit of making — like sharing information, collaboration, mass customization, education, ease of use, fun — and together reflect the values of the Fabrication Commons.
The following vignettes place the prototypes in a larger context again. The two visualizations (pictured above and below) imagine how an accessible fabrication commons might be used to allow for people to create objects to suit their particular lifestyles. The objects in the first visualization are being created with some of the future versions of the interface tools, and appear in the second visualization in a domestic setting, reflecting the needs and tastes of its occupants.
The drawings four drawing below imagine possible interactions between users of the fabrication commons.
The first illustrates two people living in different cities exchanging information about how to build an interface tool for their respective fabrication commons, to engage more people in their local community. This interaction is based on a real online conversation I had with a student in India about prototype 4, the Tactile Designer. The second illustrates an example of a differently-abled user sharing their hacks with an online community with similar needs. Designs are exchanged and modified, and improved by community members. This type of community is simultaneously global and local. Drawing three shows a user of the fabrication commons creating and displaying a project in the gallery space. The project catches the attention of a local to the community visiting the building, who contacts the maker to commission a piece in the same style.
With these vignettes of people making, sharing, learning and interacting, we can start to form an idea of how a community of empowered, connected creators would look like (drawing four, below). Any neighbourhood can benefit from a building or space of a suitable size, creating a growing group of makers. These local communities would be connected virtually with the global network of other fabrication commons spaces around the world.
CONCLUSION:
We are still quite far from these communities I have illustrated, of makers that are empowered, self-sufficient, and interconnected. Many believe that people will be completely replaced in the fields of design and fabrication because of the advances in technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics. However, I think that as long as there is means of communication between human and machine, these technologies can be used to amplify all of our uniquely human abilities. With the proper interfaces, these technologies can give us more freedom and opportunity.
I hope that the prototypes I have made will excite potential new makers about their undiscovered ability to create something useful and unique. I also hope that it will encourage other designers to create, improve, and share these interface tools. I will undoubtedly continue to learn and create, but now with a greater appreciation for the importance of facilitating creation for others as well.
Digital fabrication tools and networking technology applied correctly already have the ability to improve the lives of individuals and small communities. With enough people involved in an ecosystem such as the fabrication commons, this movement of creation and collaboration has the possibility of becoming an alternative cultural and economic model that could undermine and even rival capitalism.
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