For this assignment, we were tasked with 3D printing an impossible object, meaning an object that can not be fabricated through other methods. After searching through many cool models on Thingiverse, I decided to go with this Gyroid Cube, because of its interesting form and the fact that it look the most stable with fairly thick walls as seen in the images from the website:

I used the “Half Blood Prints” printer in the 3D print corner with the black filament to print this form. I included supports and a raft, which had to be plucked off later. The entire print took around 5 hours as I was printing my object with some other objects.

 

Here is the object after the raft was removed but with the zigzag supports in the holes:

At first, I decided to remove the supports by hand, but after realizing this was actually pretty sharp and abrasive, I switched to using other tools like scissors, a paperclip, and tweezers:

Overall, this worked out to make the model:

It took me a long time to remove the supports, so I would try printing without them to eliminate this work if I were to try it again. Another option would be to use the industrial printers that print dissolvable supports to make it an easier process. Overall, I was able to experiment with printing this object and it was interesting to think about the ways that you can make these intricate and “impossible” objects with 3D printing which cannot be created through other fabrication methods.

In addition to creating these impossible objects, 3D printing seems to be a great way to rapidly create precise forms with the exact dimensions and shapes you want. Currently, I am also working on another project where we are try to create a mold of Rice’s iconic Willy’s statue for making chocolate or candy. In this project, we used drone photography to take around 100 photos of the statue at several angles and elevations.

I put these photos in Autodesk Remake which magically converted them into a 3D model and cleaned up in Meshmixer. After these steps, the final model looked like this:

Then, this file was printed, resulting in this physical object:

Currently, we at the step of creating the actual mold which can be by printing a two-part negative mold of the object or creating a mold with silicone. Overall, I am amazed at how (relatively) easy it was to create this model and how adaptable and useful 3D printing can be to create forms rapidly.