M3 Week 2¶

Assignments¶

This week you would need to create a mold to produce a biomaterial.

Process¶

This week I worked on creating a mold to produce a biomaterial.
For the first step I created a design on inkscape, you can find the design here Mold for Biomaterial After that I used the laser cutter to cut the mold. Then I gathered the materials to work with. For this specific experiment I worked with a colleague who is also in the Fab Lab course, Amaria. We worked with gelatin, glicerol, water and as additives we used leftovers of ground coffee and ashes from a volcano (Some Guatemala’s volcanoes are constantly active, resulting in regular showers of ash in the country, I collect the ash to make artistic projects). After pouting the gelatin into the mould we left it for about a week to dry. After that we did the unmolding. I tried the elasticity and viscosity by placing it on a window in my classroom. I think I want to do a project using this to simulate stained glass, but I’ll have to experiment more with other materials.

Reflection¶

Have you considered sustainable practices in your teaching in the pasts? How? What aspects do you think should be improved in your own teaching environment? I have, I think it is very important to consider this aspect while teaching. In simple actions we try to take advantage of the resources we have in the classroom maximizing their use. I encourage students to use both sides of a paper when drafting, we save scraps for collages, and repurpose ‘found objects’ like cardboard or plastic bottles into sculptures or art projects. This teaches them that creativity doesn’t always require buying new materials. I believe we can improve by being more intentional with our waste management and material life cycles. This biomaterial experimentation gave me some ideas on how we can do that and how important it is to teach it.
How Digital Fabrication might support sustainable practices? When using Digital Fabrication what actions you can take to support sustainable practices. I think digital fabrication can reduce waste through precision for example tools like laser cutters or 3D printers allow you to use the exact amount of material needed, but you need to learn how to use them effectively first. Also digital files can be shared globally to be made locally, reducing transport pollution and allowing others experience and ccomplishing same objectives around the world. I think some actions that you can take to support this practice is first working on protoypes using recyclable material so that you avoid wasting any innecessary material. Also whenever you design files for cutting take advantage of any space to reduce scrap and maybe consider or think of how the scrap is going to be used maybe for a sculpture project or something creative.
How could you integrate both culturally reflective learning and digital fabrication in your environment? Could you come up with some project ideas using digital fabrication in which cultural diversity of students is highlighted? You can integrate these by using digital tools to reimagine traditional crafts. Instead of just making generic items, students can use software to digitize local patterns, preserving their culture while learning modern technical skills. For example, students modeling mayan Tikal Pyramids, and comparing it to models of pyramids around the world, working on stencils to recreate the traditional clothes of mayan civilization, working on stencils for murals representing flora and fauna of the country. Creating 3D models of Guatemalan traditional toys.

Tools¶

For cutting: Laser cutter
For creating the stencil: Inkscape
Document created: Mold for Biomaterial