"inFORMed Clay Matter 2.0" workshop

inFORMed Clay matter 2.0
grasshopper & robotics workshop
23-25 Oct 2015 - Turin, Italy

The workshop idea rises from a collaboration between Co-de-iT, Fablab Torino, Officine Arduino, based on an ongoing Co-de-iT research called “inFORMed matter“.

The “inFORMed matter” research project focuses on the exploration of additive fabrication processes, aiming to inform as in to produce form through the morphogenetic properties and capacities of matter by embedding further information structures during the fabrication process itself.

The goal is to go beyond the current state of prototyping, according to which the physical prototype should be as close as possible a clone of its digital counterpart, thus making fabrication a purely replicational phase. Instead, by coding and embedding additional levels of information aimed at mapping and defining material features and behaviors as well as different deployment patterns from which physical and aesthetic properties arise, the production and digital fabrication phase becomes an integral part of the design process.

The workshop it’s focused about the exploration and development of the whole process of design and digital manufacturing through additive processes of ceramic mixture materials.

[.] Workshop topics:

- Anticipate material behavior through digital simulation: test and apply different tool-based conditions and parameters (extrusion direction angle, speed of extrusion, variable layer thickness, etc … ) and evaluate the consequent material behavior in order to get useful feedback for the next iteration of the digital model. The aim is to understand how to embed material properties as code/information during the digital design phase, fine tuning it towards the desired effect-outcome.
- Seamless design-to-machine pipeline: shorten the information pipeline from the design process to the constructor machine. This is achieved by acting on both factors: informing directly the machines by generating the necessary code in the design tool and build the design process around the capacities of the machines involved.
- Embed morphogenetic material properties as design factors: understand and manage such properties, behaviors and their potential morphological outcomes for different materials, from clay to biologic matter, in order to map and use them as an atlas of expressive possibilities and performances of the material.
- Understand constraints and opportunities determined by the chosen constructor agent/machine: learn to use and manage different machines to handle the extrusion tool for additive processes and learn to evaluate and exploit the influence, constraints and given opportunities provided by different machines and movement technologies.

During the workshop will be used as tools for handling the special ceramic extruder, a customized 3D printer, type delta, and a 6-axis Comau Robot NJ 60.

The final output will be then the result of influence, cooperation and conflict of these aspects upon, with and onto one another. Only successfully combining computational simulation, material properties and capacities and machine constraints and opportunities we can effectively evaluate and push further the design process potential and foster design and fabrication skills and sensibilities that will form the basis of a more comprehensive awareness in regard to the relations between computation and material aspects.

More info at: http://www.co-de-it.com/wordpress/informed-clay-matter-2-0-fablab-torino.html