Post 9 pt. a

Post 9 - Red Iron Blade pt.2 - Prototyping a.)

Now that my final design was complete (for the most part) I decided to jump into prototyping. 

I ended up being more eager than I thought, to see how my forms would look crafted in paper. 

The first step was to take each of my pieces and unfold them to create a blueprint.

I began with the blade. This is where I figured out that unfolding these pieces correctly was no easy task, especially with a shape that gives little indication as to which part of the piece is on the right side and where they are supposed to connect. 

I proceeded to my first attempt at unfolding and creating the map for my shape.

Before cleaning up my sketch, I wanted to ensure that my form would look the way I wanted it post-fold. I went on to print my first attempt, which served as my first prototype and test subject.

Right away, I ran into a few issues. 

Firstly, my prototype was printed on standard printer paper, which ended up being difficult to fold, and control in such thin areas.

That aside, it came to my attention that the entire blueprint was a mess. My pieces were not folding together properly, the joining areas were all over the place, and the area left for gluing was not wide enough to make it possible. 

After a few minutes of brainstorming and problem-solving, I decided to try a different approach. 

For my next attempt, I decided to try putting my pieces closer together and avoiding any unnecessary separation. I thought that maybe if I had more foldable areas rather than ones that need joining, the overall structure of my shape would improve, also becoming easier to manage.

This time, I would also try to print out my blueprint on cardstock paper.

While this has worked significantly better than my previous attempt, the result was not quite satisfactory. 

I realized that I made some good progress, learning what works well, and what does not. 

Here is where I began understanding that the shape I was after was a difficult one to create in one piece, (if at all possible), especially at the top and the bottom. 

Before continuing, I decided to brainstorm a little more and summarize the issues at hand while trying to come up with solutions to overcome them. 

This is what I came up with:

Issue #1: Although this attempt produced far better results than the last, I could not figure out how to close the gaps located in the top and bottom areas.

Problem: Lack of material

Solution: Add more material. 

Issue#2: It occured to me that the side parts of my blade were not placed correctly. These were not same-width pieces, they were thicker at the top and thinner at the bottom - An error in the unfoding process on my part. 

Problem: Incorrect blade edge rotation.

Solution: Fix the rotation.

Issue#3: The cardstock paper was perfect for overall structural integrity, however, I found myself really struggling to keep the shape together, without relying on tape.

Problem: Weak glue 

Solution: Hot glue? Superglue? 

Issue#4: While the shape in itself was decent, I was bothered by the inability to control its interior space. This blueprint created an 'okay' shape on one side, and an asymmetrical mess on the other due to the joining area. This was a deal breaker for me, as the final outcome of this project - in my case - relied heavily on symmetry. 

Problem: Asymmetry

Solution: ??? 

After a bit of thinking, I shortly realized I was stuck and hyperfocused on finding the solution right away, which was not helping. I needed to make progress.

To battle this, I moved on to the following steps in my process, this time working with another shape.

The most simple one to work with was the arrow-like shape that connected to the blade. My blueprint was not perfect, but it was enough for prototyping.

Because there was no need to battle the blade edge with this shape, my blueprint worked far better than the one above. This piece worked well with symmetry due to the lack of complex angles. The top closed nicely thanks to the joint, though once again I was left with a gap at the bottom.

While comparing the two pieces, I have also come to realize that in order for my overall project to look uniform, I need to design each one of these pieces in a similar fashion. This meant that I can not bypass one issue to solve the other. I need to solve them all.

To do this, I first needed to understand the design in full, and the mistakes made. This process has forced me into a closer consideration of detail in my work. The areas marked in red were ones with major errors that I needed to work on. At that point, it did not matter how many pieces of the whole puzzle I create, if the issue is present in all of them. 

This part is what made me consider the bigger picture.