05: 3D design and printing

I started this week knowing I wanted something functional. That led me to two main ideas:

1. A laptop stand
2. A phone/camera holder

Talked over my ideas with Bobby, and we decided to go for the laptop stand first. It would be easier and would need less external assembly

I started off with an in place hinge for rotation. Got a lot of experience doing CAD, and saw how 6 minutes can turn into 1 hour. The final result was a tiny hinge that formed the basis of my laptop stand. I wanted something adjustable that could move through different heights and be adjustable

Here is the YouTube video I used for the in place hinge

Interesting things I learned were the use of revolute joints and I started thinking about tolerances more concretely. I also got more accustomed to parametrized modeling

I also downloaded a laptop stand from an open source stl models site, before developing my own, just to get a feel for the more structural side of things. How thick a developed stand was, how well fit the tolerances would have to be.

After developing the hinge, I extended the ends of the hinge, added stands and supports to make the laptop stand. I made two sizes of stands to make it adjustable (that's at least double the value)

Final project timeline, bill of materials & progress

At this point I was still aiming at an Iron Man helmet for the final project — I looked at models online and printed a few preliminary parts to see how the geometry would split and fit.

Materials I had in mind:

• PLA for 3D printing (shell and mechanism parts)
• Lab stock (fasteners, wire, basic assembly)
• Servo motors for the faceplate opening mechanism

That plan didn't stick — I pivoted to CubeControl (Rubik's cube controller) later in the semester. The laptop stand and hinge work from this week still fed into how I think about tolerances and print-in-place parts for the cube shell.