UCSB MAT Computational Fabrication - Parametric Light Fixture

This project is for Dr. Jennifer Jacobs' Computational Fabrication course in UC Santa Barbara's Media Arts & Technology department.

Our assignment was to create a generative parametric design using Grasshopper to house a light bulb. I've always been inspired by the 3D structures of Isamu Noguchi and Bruno Munari's tensile light structures, so I decided to work on an idea based on them.

I was not able to achieve what I wanted, but this tutorial may change over time as my skill level increases.

A couple of courses on Lynda.com/LinkedIn Learning really helped me get a lot more comfortable in Rhino and Grasshopper and they are highly recommended:

1. Learning Rhino 6 for Mac
2. Grasshopper Essential Training

This is a great time to point out that if you live in the US, most US public libraries offer free access to Lynda.com/LinkedIn Learning. Visit your local public library and get a library card. Also: libraries are awesome.

My inspiration for this lamp came from the Falkland Lamps of Milanese designer Bruno Munari from the 1960s. These lamps are created with a nylon stocking and metal rings.

Why this design is inspiring for this project:

• It relies upon a perceived randomness in the size of the rings.
• It easily evokes a generative system in which many variations could be produced.

Things that are inspiring, but will not be replicated in computational fabrication:

• The tensile structure of the fabric is something inherent to the nylon itself, so it doesn't really make sense to reproduce it in this 3D printed plastic project. I will, however, be experimenting with tensile fabric in Rhino later on, as you will see.

The light fixture I decided to use is one I had sitting around the house for previous photography projects. It has a ceramic base, so I'm comfortable with it's ability to insulate and I have a few of them so I might turn this into a series!

I used calipers to measure the dimensions exactly so that I could build a base for it.

One thing to note is that there is a screw that holds the wire into the base of the fixture, so I was careful to take that into consideration.

My Grasshopper code is a work in progress and I decided to include a dead end that I explored even though it doesn't do anything at the moment.

I had a few initial goals for this project:

1. I wanted my geometry to be entirely generated and not based on any geometry created within the Rhino interface.
2. I wanted my base size, min/max height, and min/max width to be parameterized.
3. I wanted the geometry to be based on circles, like the metal rings in Munari's lamp.
4. I wanted sliders that gave the the possibility of iterating quickly on different possible designs.
5. I wanted the circles to be lofted (or connected somehow) in a way that was still easily 3D printed without a lot of supports.

Here is a sample animated gif with me scrubbing along the random seed for the circle width and then the random circle height.

Because of the caliper measurements, I was able to build a structure that is custom made to house the entire ceramic light fixture.

What remains to be seen is whether the ceramic fixture insulates enough of the heat generated by the light bulb to be safe. I anticipate that low wattage lights will be OK to use in this, but I will be keeping an eye on it.

I also designed a hole that was large enough for the plug to get through.

I chose a light bulb that was very low wattage.

These are 4 watt amber colored LED bulbs that will look attractive even if you look into the top of the light. They are also dimmable.

As you can see in these images Cura sliced a very long print.

I ended up using a 5% infill because of my platform for the light bulb. The actual walls of my light are only offset to 1 mm, so I don't think infill would affect the time there and I wanted the added structure on that portion of the light.

The print is a long one, but I'm hopeful it will work out so that I can have a new light fixture in our apartment!

The most crucial part, the opening and the fixture stand seem to have printed well.

I did have a little trouble getting the PLA to adhere to the print bed, but that was somewhat fixed by re-aligning the bed. It still messed up a bit at the level of the bed, but ultimately I decided to let the print proceed and accept a few artifacts.

After it completed printing, I was pleasantly surprised by how everything worked out and I actually think that it looks better as a print than as a render.

The one surprising thing was that the measurements were very nearly exact. I left a bit of room for the light bulb fixture (about 2 mm) and I actually wish that I hadn't left so much room there because it could have been tighter. Nevertheless it works and looks great.

The quality of light is also quite beautiful and reminds me of Japanese lanterns.

There were a few things that stood out for me in my research for this project.

1. The strength of Munari's design is its use of the unique material properties of the nylon stockings. In future 3D printing projects, I'm curious about building armatures for other materials rather than seeing the 3D print itself as the final project.
2. That said, simulating physics is also an interesting curiosity that I could satisfy using the Kangaroo plugin for Grasshopper. I know that it is possible to simulate tensile fabrics and surface tension by adding physics to surfaces and I've encountered several Kangaroo tutorials that teach this. I would like to experiment to see if it might be possible to print these kinds of simulated shapes.