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Talked to Mike about CNCing a plaster mould"
  • CNCing is:
    • time consuming
      • Block must be completely dry (7 days at 50 degrees)
      • 30hr to CNC
    • Messy
      • Requires extraction 24/7
  • It would be better to make a mould from a master (CNC'd from MDF, Cibatool etc.)
    • Mould doesn't need to be dry before slip casting
      • Quick and efficient
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Lyn and Yueyun's comments from my 8 minute presentation:
  • Thoughtful and developed presentation. I really enjoyed that
  • I got the joke
  • Kmart is a good story. Give it a time and date. At the moment it is a bit abstract
  • Objectives were good
  • Tell us where your ideas came from e.g. Slow Design principles
  • Tell everyone that the diagram is yours "ta da!"
    • Atm it is ambiguous what is yours and what is other people's
  • Building into a really good story
  • Make sure your process is in there
    • Make it obvious how you have developed your ideas
    • Have it raw
  • Nice drawings, shows sensitivity
  • We are seeing good visualisation skills
  • Work with traditional/noble materials
    • Warmth, texture, dense
    • Wood, brass, steel, cork, fabrics, ceramic
  • Get it right down to the details
  • Where do they fit in the home?
    • Nest together?
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I spoke with Emma about slip casting because I know she uses the technique in her own practice. I had slip cast a small bowl for a test, and had some questions about the process.

One of the problems with my test was that after demoulding the bowl, the edges of the bowl tended to sag and the bottom that it was resting on flattened out. Emma suggested that I leave the clay to dry inside the plaster mould. I will need to do a test with a dryer plaster mould, because my first one was very wet and I don't imagine the clay would have dried very fast inside it. Another way to stop it deforming is to use a two part mould, where the second part is a ring that covers the top edges of the bowl. This creates a supportive structure that can be trimmed off when the clay is dry.

Emma suggested a different technique for making the plaster mould. For my test, I made a square mould in a wooden box. To use less plaster and have a lighter mould that is quicker to dry, I should make a round mould. Emma uses a laser cut acrylic circle as a base, wraps a PP strip around it to make a wall for the plaster, uses packing tape to secure the PP to itself, and hot glues the outside of the PP where it meets the table, ensuring there is no leakage.

I asked Emma for suggestions on how I could make a groove in the surface of the bowl around its circumference. The groove would  hold the edge of an elasticated cover. She said I could make it in the mould, or cut it after (which would probably be easier). There are two ways to make it in the mould: 3D print the form, cast it in flexible urethane, cast silicone into the urethan mould, and then use the silicone form to build the plaster mould (silicone is stretchy so it can be manoeuvred out of the plaster mould once dry); or CAD the mould, 3D print it and cast into that with silicone.

Emma also suggested I look up jiggering and jollying techniques for ceramics.
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As  tutorial group we discussed research methods and design criteria. Emma pointed out that we can use the tools in Universal Methods of Design to analyse our secondary (contextual) research, not just our primary research. It will be helpful to have some of the research methods in my mind as I read through my secondary research.

The design criteria should be separated into functional and experiential aspects, and Emma suggested placing the design criteria into categories based on what the design 'must do'; 'should do'; and would be 'nice to do'. 
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Talked with Emma about my concepts. The concept I will go with is the family of slow-designed sourdough tools. While that concept seems quite obvious, the key part for my project will be the hidden details, development of expertise, wearing-in and wearing-out of the tools. For example, a lame that is held differently for beginner and more expert sourdough bakers, that changes as the baker gets better at making sourdough. Emma wants me to include a time frame of developing these products in my report: which is most important; how much time each will take. It will be important to get each product to the same finished standard, and the final product should be usable (it will have to be tested throughout the development phase, so this is a given). The family of products should not be a kit: they should not replace existing items that the user might already own. Rather, the products should be for specific parts of the sourdough process, i.e. a lame for scoring, dough scraper for scraping, banneton for proofing and container for storing the right amount of starter.
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I discussed the project brief that we're producing individually with Novelyn. She's doing a similar project to mine: reducing stress in the work environment. She is using biophilic design as a way to create a calming, natural environment. I hadn't considered incorporating nature into my project, but it could be a good way to calm the user and slow their pace of life.
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I decided to focus my semantic differential on grain mills. I will provide participants with several images of different mills, and ask them to say whether on a continuum the products sit. Potential word pairs are: trendy-dated; fun-dull; stressful-relaxing; unsatisfying-satisfying; difficult-easy; dependable-unreliable; efficient-inefficient; high-quality-low-quality; meaningful-meaningless.

Rik completed my differential with one image, and pointed out that some of the word pairs were more experience-based, and would be easier to answer had he actually used the product in the image. These word pairs were efficient-inefficient, high-quality-low-quality, and meaningful-meaningless. Maybe I could replace these pairs with other words to get better results.
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Spoke with Lyn. We talked about the story of the products, from display in shop to packaging, materials and end of life. The story of the product is important because it conveys the 'wearing in' and 'wearing out' of the tools to the user. Maybe the bowl cover could function as packaging.

I am struggling with designing the dough scraper. Could the dough scraper make use of 3D contouring on the handle? Using traditional knife making techniques with contemporary CNC technology. Use clay for tests.

The lame could fit together with the dough scraper for storage/packaging. This would contrast the starter bowl which is in constant use and doesn't need to be put into storage.
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In our group session with Emma we talked about the six week hand-in of the report. The report is essentially everything we've done so far, in 2000 words.
  • Bibliography = everything you've read
  • Reference list = everything you've cited
  • In the image list, use "author's own" for original work
Emma suggested looking at reports from previous students who were using similar primary research methods to us to see how they used them, analysed them and wrote them up.