Fab Challenge

The preparation

When we (Marina, Tatiana and Roberto) teamed up together to work on the fabacademy monthly challenge, we began by outlining our different interests, trying to find common ground for the project. We noticed plants, biology, science, interactivity and bioremediation pop up in common.

Some ideas popped up, like a spice holder, plant pots or even a small laser cut village.

We asked ourselves

How can we interact with our plants and living species in our home in a fun way?

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We decided upon a game involving plants: the plant race

A game where two people could measure the growth and progress of their plants over time, allowing the best caregiver to win.

How does it work?

You place 3 plants side by side, with 3 thin wooden stick with holes in them in between them. The holes in the stick would be accompanied by wooden pegs which represent the speed at which the plants are growing.

Each week, the players would measure the growth of the plants and add the corresponding "Week x" peg to the height the plant has grown.
It is reminescent of being a child, and marking the growth of the child every year with marks on the wall to measure height.

The winner of the game, is the caregiver whose plant has grown the most by the end of the stipulated time frame.

Once the concept was defined, each of us separated and decided to work on different areas: Tatiana did the sketches and documentation, Marina updated the Miro board and Roberto started 3D modeling.

On Wednesday, we finalized the sketches in order to get a clear idea of the output. We decided we wanted to make a panel that could be hung up on a wall, displaying propagated plants in test tubes. By choosing the propagated plants, we got the idea for the project: “Propagame”.

We started gathering all the materials needed:

3

150mm x 24mm pyrex test tubes

1

100mm x 50mm
MDF Panel

3

Pothos Plants

3

15cm strings

3

Wood sticks to be cut

18

6x30mm Wooden dowels

First thing in the morning on Thursday, we all went to a plant shop to buy the plants we needed. The store was closed, so we sat in the sun while waiting for it to open.

Once the store opened, we searched for something which could be propagated in water, so that it could fit well in the test tubes we got the previous day. We decided upon getting a Pothos which we could cut and propagate, then two smaller plants in case we wanted to make a standing version of the plant game, in addition to the wall hanging one.

After this, Marina and Tatiana worked on making the wooden sticks in which to put the pegs. We found some scrap wood which we could use and began measuring the desired length, according to the tube length. One thing to note is that the scrap wood we found each had slightly different compositions and sizes, which is important to consider in the next few steps.

We settled upon making each piece 26cm, made the marks for the cuts and began cutting. We used the saw, then sanded the edges in order to get them all the exact same width and depth. It was hard to achieve this, but we managed.

Once every wooden piece was the same size and circumference, we proceeded to mark where we wanted our holes for the pegs to be. The pegs we chose were actually 0.6mm x 30mm dowels, so we based our measurements upon this. We chose to space the holes in 2cm gaps, but looking back we could have definitely gone smaller, perhaps 1,5cm.

We chose a 0.6mm drill attachment and began drilling according to the marks. After a few holes, we found a technique which worked well for us: Tatiana positioned the stick lengthwise while Marina centered it widthwise, making it align as perfectly as possible. We got our holes done and were super happy!

A consideration to keep in mind is that, given the difference in materials, some sticks were more fragile than others, especially the composite layered wood. This meant that some of the edges broke off during the drilling process, as pictured in the center piece.

While Marina and Tatiana worked on the wooden sticks, Roberto finalized the laser cutting project. We encountered some file compatibility issues, so we were set back a little bit.

Fabrication process of laser cutting:
- Laser cutter for cutting 3mm MDF: 55 power, 0.5 speed
- Laser cutter for engraving 3mm MDF: 70 power, 100 speed

First iteration (3D Fusion)

Second iteration (2D Illustrator)

Third iteration (Parametric sketch on Fusion)

Once we finished cutting the board on the laser cutter, we proceeded to assemble the different parts. We encountered some problems the first two times we cut the board such as the finger joints not fitting properly, so we had to iterate twice. The final result was one that could fit very well.

Cutting and assembling the board

Vinyl Cutting

In order to mark the growth of the plants, we decided to create small flags on wooden dowels that would denote growth per week, with the pegs inserted into the small drill holes. The flags were created on illustrator, saved as a dxf file, then sent to the vinyl cutter. We used a different color for each week. After doing a first test with the vinyl cutter, it was realized that too small a font could not be used because the vinyl was too fragile, so we had to increase the size to be able to work with it and then recut it like this.

Techniques Used

Sawing the wood
Sanding the wood (machine + manually)
Drilling the wood
Designing the board in 2D, 3D and parametrically for the various iterations (Fusion, Illustrator and Rhino)
Laser cutting the board
Gluing the wood onto the board
Designing vinyl cut stickers (Illustrator)
Vinyl cutting the stickers for the pegs
Painting the board
Using git and html to document the process.

Future Developments

Propagame has a lot of potential for growth due to its flexible nature. We have started small with plants that can easily propagate but it can develop further into also including:

- Lights that serve as both a spotlight to showcase the plant, as well as a growing medium for indoor plants.

- Sounds, which would attract higher visibility.

- A stand-level version of Propagame which would be able to handle bigger plants and record changes over longer periods of time. It could serve as an A/B testing methodology for plant growth, comparing different kinds of plant supplements, lightning, watering, and many more.

Considerations & Mistakes

We could have made more holes for the pegs
Selecting the same wood composition sticks would have yielded a more uniform look and also help the process of drilling and sawing.
Not using finger joints but rather press-fit holes gave us tighter fit
Lining up the panels dimension better in Rhino, in order to avoid sawing off the edges would have helped.
When vinyl cutting, we had to make sure to use a big enough font for it to be readable.
Using Illustrator was not the best software to design the board, we should have done it in Fusion and Rhino to avoid compatibility issues from the beginning.

The preparation

We asked ourselves

We decided upon a game involving plants: the plant race

A game where two people could measure the growth and progress of their plants over time, allowing the best caregiver to win.

Once the concept was defined, each of us separated and decided to work on different areas: Tatiana did the sketches and documentation, Marina updated the Miro board and Roberto started 3D modeling.