====== Week 3: Circular open source fashion ======

==== The Brief: design a modular reconfigurable system or seamless garments, show that the connection is well designed and holds the pull/stretch of a garment  ====

This week's task came with a lot of challenges, one being designing the pattern that would interlock and not fall apart. I wanted to achieve a very clean finish and was inspired by natural geometric shapes. One shape that I liked a lot was the hexagonal shape of a honeycomb. I also usd this shape because i wanted to make the structure very stable.

==== Step 1: Designing on paper  ====

Before I started drawing on tracing paper I played around with different designs and patterns. While designing my pattern i also had to think about what kind of garment/product I wanted to make. Another big factor that i had to consider was which material I wanted to use.

- final design

- I decided to make a laptop sleeve out of felt. I choose felt because it is a stable material and would hold the shape quite well.

{{:fabricademy2017:students:newton.laura:sketch.jpg?nolink&250x174|sketch.jpg}}

==== Step 2: Designing on Rhino  ====

I started by making a basic hexagon and added lines to make the external parts (positive parts). I also added slits to 3 sides to make the negative part.

==== Step 3: testing my chosen material.  ====

Because I had never use this material before I had to test it in the laser cutter.

Power : 40% Speed Frequency:

Unfortunately a side effect of using the laser cutter is the Kerf - which is the portion of material that burns away along the edge. Becasue the kerf of the synthetic felt was around 2mm I decided to add more a significant part to my external part of the piece to make it stronger. (from 6mm to 14mm)

{{:fabricademy2017:students:newton.laura:front.back.jpg?nolink&300x293|front.back.jpg}}

{{:fabricademy2017:students:newton.laura:interlocked.jpg?nolink&300x258|interlocked.jpg}}

{{:fabricademy2017:students:newton.laura:single.jpg?nolink&300x331|single.jpg}}

When i began assembling the modules to make the sleeve I discovered a few problems:

1) I will need more pieces as I incorrectly calculated how much I needed

2) I need to make special additional edge modules in order to the final shape to be rectangular

I will keep working on this and use my errors as improvement measures in my next attempt.