Wire Holder

Intention

I initially thought of making a key chain/lanyard holder because I constantly lose my keys in my room and simple have no space on my desk to place my keys. But I decided to double its functionality as a wire holder too.

Research and Inspiration

There were alot of holders that I found online but they looks super minimalist and boring. I wanted to make my holder look goofy;  full of faces and animals so I decided to draw some inspiration from kaomojis and anime. I also knew I wanted to make my hook look like an octopus tentacle, and scene from nichijou came to mind.  Yuuko, one of the main characters, has a sausage in her bento box, cut to look like an octopus and I thought that it was super cute. 

Sketch

The sketches were limited by my terrible drawing skills, but give a general idea for what I was going for. I started off with the kaomojis as they were more simple to draw and then thought of how I would incorporate the faces into being the parts that hold things. I made it so it kind of looks like the clips that can hold cables are the eyebrows of the faces and then the mouths on the bottom row holes where I can loop cables through.

The octopus was going to be the one that holds the keys as the keys are by far the heaviest and largest of all the things that I was going to place on the holder. 

I made as many holes and clip things that I thought could fit on a board smaller than 4 inches.

Process & Product

I started with the restriction of the 4 inch max 3d print dimension in mind and created parameters for all the dimensions of the clips and faces. I used alot of construction lines to make sure everything matched up looked even. 

The mirror tool helped alot with making the faces even

The octopus was created in a different file and was done through a sketching a few rectangles and using the spline tool to get the general shape of the octopus. The dimensions were all based off of what dimensions I had when I finished modeling the base. 

The octopus cut-outs were the first things to get done as they were quick to cut compared to the 3d print. I used chipboard as I wanted something not too thick, smooth, and strong enough to hold keys. 

The stratasys continuous printer messed up the print 2 times but finally on the third try which took 9.5 hours, it was all ready to go. The dimensions were all perfect and I did not need to reprint!

The only hiccup was the notch at the top of the octopus. The notch was a little too large and didn't fit, so I filed the notch down as shown below

Here it is all assembled! I thought that the faces were too hidden and so I decided to paint the indentations of the faces in white to make the pop out more. 

Below are all the final product pictures with all the faces now painted white... I messed up the paint alittle and think that it looked better before, but oh well!

Reflection

I think that everything turned out great. The size was perfect, its able to hold so much, Its easy to use, goofy and fun looking. I think that I could have done a better job with the paint but functionality wise, I couldn't ask for more. I am glad that I had created the parameters prior to starting everything and created a whole lot of construction lines. They were lifesavers and definately helped me with the creation of the holder. If I were to redo this project though, I think that I would make the details of the faces a little larger as the stratasys printer could not handle the intricasies of the faces super well. All in all however, I am very happy with the result and can't wait to model and create more things using lazer cutters and 3D printers!