3D printing as ideation tool

Make-It-Yourself (MIY) 3D printing is the personal manufacturing process of turning a 3D digital design file into a solid object using open-source 3D printers or printers that come in a box ready to print. Involving both soft- and hard-ware skills, the set-up and operation, however, can be more difficult than it seems. For example, using polymer-based materials, a skip of the printer or glitz in the extruder may ruin the print, a failure that happens when the plastic filament melts and get wrapped around the print head. Or, when the gears on the printer's X and Y axis belts slip on the motor shaft causing the print head not to be properly aligned from layer to layer. Or, when the print head knocks off a part of model, or the object becomes loose from the print-bed. Or, when simply using wrong settings. But print failures, although frustrating, particularly when they occur several hours into the print process (and large-scale objects can take anywhere from 24-48 hours to complete), can be seen as learning since failures are often steps towards new discoveries. Indeed failures can be turned into serendipitous art work, or so called "glitch art". Learning from failure, or trial and error, as embedded in creative processes, then turn 3D printing into an ideation tool.

Idea-driven design

Ideas drive design. But ideation is much more than a sudden flash of inspiration from out of the blue, or the Eureka or Aha! moment. It is process work involving skills that can be learned, taught and practiced. It's an incremental process that navigates between ideas which are either too obvious or unclear unleashing the flow of creativity. This is what the workshop seeks to address; to experiment and build experiences with concept tools, from sketching to modelling to sticky notes, to encourage greater transparency of ideation processes.