Clay Royse - FDM update

Render shows piece installed in Boston's City Hall plaza fountain, circa 1970.

Clay Royse - Laser Cutting

I was immediately drawn to the parallels between the serial build process and medical imaging, specifically the slices that MRI and CT scanning create. I had my first CT scan this summer, after a bike wreck in July left me unconscious and thinking it was March. Unfortunately, I didn't have the presence of mind at the time to request my scan data, so this is less of a self portrait than I'd like it to be.

I cut two of these skulls, in hopes that I could rearrange the slices and stack them in a way I found interesting. What I found most appealing was a form mirrored around the bridge of the nose, using half as many slices on the bottom. It creates a shape that is somewhere between a beehive and Admiral Ackbar.

Clay Royse - FDM Project

For my FDM project I modelled a sphere out of discs. To me, this was the best way to represent the themes of dimensionality covered in this class. I can't speak for the rest of you, but I find working on a three-dimensional object represented on a two-dimensional array of pixels using a 113 buttons and a sliding control device deeply... strange. My best analogy is that it is akin to learning how to knit while wearing mittens.

To turn this beige object into a public art maquette, I used polyester dye. Since I couldn't find a pan deep enough to submerge the entire piece, I had to keep turning it. This resulted in the uneven color you now see. The dye didn't take on the outer surface, but because the heat involved opened up some of the plastic "weave," a good deal of it migrated into the hollow middle of the piece. I think it looks a lot better than if it had been a more uniform grey.

Super Mario Theme on Stepper Motors

lazzor music! from hypatia on Vimeo.

P.Scott's talk on the music of laser cutters reminded me of this gem. I'd figured this was possible from listening to dot-matrix printers back in the day, but wasn't quite obsessive enough to actually want to try it. Thank goodness for the internet--someone else has!

Clay Royse - Milling Project

For my milling project I decided to look back on an old idea - an infographic showing when the states were admitted to the union. The idea of displaying and interfacing with data in a concrete way appeals to me for many reasons, chiefly the more visceral impact an tangible object has over a table of information.


Viewing the passage of time as height data gives each state its own profile, and viewers should be able to interpret the meaning of the piece without an accompanying statement.

Because of its vertical edges, this piece should lend itself well to being milled. I am also interested in using it as a mold- vacuum forming will soften the edges, making the states melt into each other in an interesting way. It will be fun to see how the process transforms the piece.