Small Vase

Intention

Write about the big ideas behind your project? What are the goals? Why did you make it? What are your motivations?

My mom’s birthday just passed, and I thought it would be nice to 3D print her a present. My mom really likes flowers. She comes home with them all the time even though my cats eat them. She always says she wants to open a flower shop once she retires from her current office job. She likes to arrange them in vases and put them all over the house. In her room, she has a mini Buddhist altar for her parents who have passed away. She likes to put maybe 1 or 2 flowers there. Right now, she currently uses an old jam jar because that’s the only thing small enough. I decided to make her a small vase that she could use for her altar. She even “drew” me a sketch of what she would want the shape to be like over snapchat

Research + Context

[How does your outcome relate to other work in the field? What makes it similar or different to other objects of the same genre? How have other objects failed to solve the problem you have identified?]

Besides it being the perfect size for the altar, the vase is made of plastic, so if my cat does get to it and knock it over, the vase won’t shatter.  In similarities, many vases do take on this particular shape, but I think mine is wider. I also did try to design mine with a little stand at the bottom because I think it looks more like a vase and less like a pitcher for water. Many vases have a completely flat bottom.

Aesthetic + Inspiration

[What influenced your design? Is there a specific style, art movement, or natural phenomena? Include at least one example. Can be a still image, video, or music.]

Looking on google, I found some images of small cute vases that I really liked and I sort of based my design off of that, and the sketch my mom sent to me. I decided to keep it super simple and plain because I think that looks best with flowers. The simple vase allows for the person to look at the flowers and not the vase.

Process + Procedure

[Outline your approach to the project. What steps did you take to design, model, sketch, and prototype this projects? What ideas did you generate and how did you refine or reject them? What challenges were encountered and how did you resolve them? Detail what you created. What methods or techniques did you use? What tools and technologies were involved? Include photos of prototypes, redesigned sketches, design worksheets, and failed trails.]

Based off the sketch my mom sent me, I looked on google and found similar designs. I drew a simple sketch with my preferred dimensions, and started by doing what we learned in class about lofting. I drew several circle sketches on offset planes and then lofted them together. I then patched the bottom and gave the vase thickness. This process was pretty similar to the coke bottle demonstration.

Reflection

[Reflect on the process of making this project. What did you learn? What would you do differently?]

If I could do this project again, I would definitely make the vase more interesting. I wanted to stick with something super simple, but maybe giving the vase some cute legs or something would have been nice. However, I learned a lot from this project. I became familiar with using fusion 360, and learned how to bring my idea to life using CAD whereas before I didn't even know what CAD was. I also learned about what could go wrong with the printers themselves, as the printer I was using got jammed in the middle of my print. Also, things don’t print out exactly how you picture them, they don’t turn out perfectly. Mine ended up not being water tight like I expected. If I were to do this again, I would design the bottom differently so its sealed better, and doesn't have possibilities for leakage. I might be able to do this by making the vase completely flat first and then adding a stand instead of extruding the bottom to be the stand.

Photos

[Five semi-professional photos with care given to context, lighting, staging, scene]

Sketches