I saw this and my first thought was “hmm… wonder what material is laser-safe and could handle patterns like this without breaking immediately?”
8 Likes
That’s the right question. What kind of material can you use. Some rubbers work. If you read Spanish, this will help you explore what is possible at the University of Buenos Aires:
2 Likes
If the design was big enough tying them together with a elastic string through holes would work as well.
That’s amazing.
I’m thinking binder board.
That’s amazing!
Ok, I’m trying to lay out some cuts, but I feel like I’m making my life hard.
Maybe I should google around how to rock at alignment/distribution/matrixing of objects in Inkscape…
Wonder if you couldn’t screencap the video, do a little Photoshop magic with it to go black and white and simplify the image, then use a raster to vector conversion to get the lines just right? Might be easier that trying to recreate it from scratch?
I may yet trace some lines over the top of some tile work at least.
Ok, clearly I need to continue the swirl a bit…
The binder board is working out pretty well so far. I can see how rubber would be better.
I’m really wondering if I can pivot this into an expanding table.
1 Like
Imagine a thin flexible sheet of a high tenacity fiber like spider silk, cut into patterns like this. A one foot square piece might make a net a hundred feet wide when pulled.
Oh man, I’m in love!! Those patterns are amazing, thanks for sharing @elrond!! My first thought would be some sort of continuous band lining the edges of all the pieces, but then it probably wouldn’t fold back together as seamlessly as the video…I definitely want to test these patterns out!
Edit: After watching the video, a link popped up leading to a full article about the patterns, and they say that the material used was a natural rubber!
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2081174-material-that-can-grow-when-stretched-is-inspired-by-islamic-art/
2 Likes
What about leather?
1 Like
Yes, the more I play with it, the more rubber seems super wise. Leather also sounds great…
Possibly also strong felts.
Oh man, I bet leather would be awesome!
1 Like
Rubber sounds good. If you wanted to go with leather, you’d probably want to go with one that was thick and hard enough to not be floppy, but not so stiff that it would rip instead of stretching. Maybe use something like a 6-7oz. vegetable tanned leather, backed with Cuben Fiber to help prevent tearing.
3 Likes