GRI.D DANNY
GRIFFIN
GUIDANCE
coding constructive processes
About
GRI.D DANNY
GRIFFIN
GUIDANCE
coding constructive processes
About
Assisted Folding
MIT, How to Make Machines that Make Almost Anything
Instructor: Neil Gershenfeld
Can we simplify an action instead of simplifying a design?
Most tasks in construction are much easier on a computer than in real life. For example, an architect’ design might require thousands of different angles for folded metal. In the digital model, this folding is trivial. Each fold is identical except for one parameter: the angle of the fold. However, in real life, the changing of this parameter can bear outsized cost, leading to pressure to simplify the design.Assisted Folding explores an alternate response, asking how this information from the digital model can be seamlessly incorporated into the function of a tool the builder is already using. If the builder’s experience could be simplified to match the digital representation, then the task would require exactly the same action, regardless of angle.
Existing tool: Box-and-Pan Brake
Basic actions in sheet metal folding
Metal folding is an operation with numerous hidden steps. There is a limitation to how much an architect can draw to make the fabricator’s job easier, eventually reaching a bottleneck where the fabricator ultimately relies on a continuous process of manually adjusting the machine.
Operation 1: Orienting the work
Operation 2: Engaging the clamp
Operation 3: Manual Folding
The manual process hidden between each step
Systems Integration Concept for programmable brake stops
Based on David Gingery’s “Designing and Building the Sheet Metal Brake”
Programmable Stop:
Attached to the sides of a manual leaf brake, the programmable stop
Manual Forming meeting soft limits imposed by programmable stops