MODULE 2: Modeling Form

In 3-D printing and additive manufacturing, a three dimensional object is created from a digital model that has been designed on a computer. Computer-aided design (CAD) and modeling programs like AutoCAD, Sketchup, and TinkerCAD are used to create these digital forms that contain the information from which an object is printed. In this module, students will use the TinkerCAD platform to build new digital forms by remixing pre-existing digital models. In doing so, they will be able to identify some of the differences between digital and real-world modeling, and learn how to navigate the various applications available through computer-aided design. They will also learn how appropriation and remix as creative tools can play a part in 3-D modeling, as they do in other forms of digital creativity.
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MODULE 3: Capturing Form

3-D scanning is an alternative approach to digital modeling that functions by capturing the shape and exterior attributes of physical objects using a laser or infrared light to measure their surfaces. 3-D scanning is commonly used for manufacturing, design, and archival purposes due to its ability to make accurate digital replicas of existing forms. This module will expose students to accessible scanning technology (including Kinect, photogrammetry phone apps, or the Occipital Structure scanner for iPad) and broaden their understanding of where and how this technology can be applied to real-world projects. Students can build on their prior remix experiments by drawing from the physical world around them as well as repositories of digital models.
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MODULE 4: Extrusion

Extrusion type printing is the most accessible, simple, and robust type of 3-D printing. An extensive understanding of how it works will help students to understand the parameters that impact the final part quality. In this module, students will engage in material experimentation with hand-held plastic extrusion devices (“3-D printing pens“), and become acquainted with how their operation reflects the ways 3-D printers additively build form.
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MODULE 5: Process

In arts and craft traditions, process is at least as important as the final creative product. Some art practices, like the mandala, place all of the importance in the process of making, destroying the product as soon as it is finished. But even traditions like manufacturing, where the product is the focus, demand careful attention to the creative process in order to create a high-quality artistic product.
Designing and digitally creating a 3-D form via online platforms like TinkerCAD is the first step in additive manufacturing. In order to correctly prep your form and make sure the design is readable to 3-D printers, print settings, file formatting, and other aspects of the printing process must be taken into account. In this module, students will gain a greater understanding of how to successfully prepare and set up their design for printing. By better understanding the process of designing and producing a successful 3-D print, students will develop a greater agency over that process, enabling them to experiment with, or fine-tune to process with artistic intent.
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MODULE 6: Material Variety

This module will familiarize students with the different types of materials that con be used in additive manufacturing. A variety of special filaments will help to demonstrate how even desktop 3-D printers can make parts with different properties.
Having familiarized themselves with 3-D printing processes over the last five modules, this module encourages students to move beyond conventional processes and materials, and experiment.
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Forms & Bodies

Many creative workers, including studio artists, jewelry makers, fashion designers, and developers of medical prosthetics, create objects to be worn on the human body. Sometimes these objects adorn the body, sometimes they extend its capabilities, and sometimes they create connections between bodies. When artists use digital fabrication to create objects for the body, or a body, they often need to attend more closely to physical properties such as scale, shape, and weight to ensure a successful ‘fit.’
In this module, students are challenged to create an artifact to be worn by a specific body. They will learn how to use the measuring tools in TinkerCAD, in concert with measurements taken in the physical world, to tailor their object to the body of the particular person they are working with.

This MOD draws upon MODULE 1: Designing Form, MODULE 2: Modeling Form, and MODULE 5: Process. You could use those modules as a prerequisite for this one, or refer to them as a resource/guide for the processes used here. It is also possible to explore designing for bodies with these materials even without using a 3D printer.
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Glitching Form

Digitizing entities from the physical world has become a tool for many artists and designers. Fashion designers base their measurements on 3-D scans of customers’ bodies. Interior design
applications use carefully measured recreations of furniture items to allow experimentation with a room’s arrangement. Special effects artists use digital scans of performers to place them in situations that would be impossible for a human body to inhabit.
The translation of physical forms into digital data also affords artists distinct opportunities for experimenting with form in the “glitch art” tradition. Since second half of the 20th century, and increasingly with the prevalence of digital tools in the 21st century, glitch artists have been experimenting with, and intentionally breaking, the technological systems that
undergird so many cultural artifacts. By breaking the rules and structures of these systems, glitch artists can make these rules and structures visible, and play outside of their boundaries.
In this unit, students will examine the work of artists who apply the glitch ethos to forms digitally captured from the physical world. Students will experiment with different strategies of disrupting the systems that capture and digitally store information on physical forms. And, ultimately, students will conduct their own creative exploration, developing a digital or physical artifact that meaningfully explores the potential of glitching forms.

This MOD draws upon MODULE 2: Modeling Form and MODULE 3: Capturing Form. You could use those modules as a prerequisite for this one, or refer to them as a resource/guide for the processes used here. It is also possible to explore the glitching practices in this unit with found models rather than scanned ones.
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Accreting Forms & Media

Additive manufacturing is based on a simple premise: material is built up in patterns by a constructing agent. This “agent” could be a computer-controlled device like a 3-D printer or an analog device like a human hand. The ceramicist who forms vessels by coiling clay into shaped layers and the 3-D printer head following precise instructions in computer code both build form in similar procedures. Adding material, as distinct from subtractive methods, may be perceived in a wide range of making practices.
Accreting, accumulating, and aggregating, as making practices, offer opportunities to reflect on our relationships with materials and forms. Issues such as consumption, environmental degradation, and dynamics of scarcity and abundance all come to the fore. How we make, what materials we use, and the life cycle of objects are all considerations in this mod.
In this unit, students will examine the work of artists who explore methods of form-making through accreting, accumulating, and aggregating, some using digital fabrication, others using non-digital tools, and yet others who aggregate digital and nondigital practices. Students will explore processes of additive making while also inventing additive methods that involve different materials and collaboration. Students will reflect on these methods as they relate to material and human relationships in a contemporary world which is full of consumption and challenged by material scarcity and dwindling resources. Student explorations in methods of form using accreting, accumulating, and aggregating processes will provide insight into ecological relationships with our social and natural world.

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