On the second day of 3DCP, we started off watching a presentation that went into depth about all the ventures the 3D pathway could lead to, such as product and packaging design, contemporary crafts, interaction design and architecture. We also looked at modern 3D and Contemporary Practice designers and saw some examples of innovative design. This was interesting to learn more about as I hadn't realised how many 3D pathways there were.
We were then given the brief of our task, which was to make an object out of uncooked spaghetti sticks, using the glue gun, that suspends 3 balls within the structure, without the balls touching each other or the floor and being able to hold the balls' weight. To help us plan for building the object, we sketched out a few designs and then used unconventional drawing techniques, such as drawing with eyes closed, with the weaker hand and without lifting the pen from the page, to use to create designs we wouldn't have originally thought of. I enjoyed using these techniques as it was interesting to see the shapes produced and allowed me to think of designs a little more out the box and less controlled.
At first when making the object with the spaghetti I tried to create it based on one of my designs, using blue-tac to hold the sticks together before gluing, however, I soon found that this was too hard and time-consuming because of how brittle and weak the spaghetti was. So I decided to go straight into gluing the sticks together without considering a design and just see what I can produce. I continued to glue sticks onto my structure, once a stable base had been created, and occasionally testing the balls weights and positions within the structure.
Once glued, I would snap off the longer pieces of spaghetti to create a more geometric boxy object that had a minimalistic aesthetic. I found once I got going that working with spaghetti was reasonably easy as long as I was careful and light-handed.
Once I had finished building my object, I photographed and used light at different angles to create shadows on the white background behind it.
Overall, I'm happy with how my object turned out as it follows the brief but is still aesthetically pleasing with a minimalistic look. I think the object was successful because I just got straight into making it, without overthinking the design or process; this is not something I would previously do with my work and I found it quite refreshing and was very happy when the finished product came out okay and this could be something to consider in future projects. I found adjusting to the unconventional material hard at first but, through trial and error, it became easier to handle the spaghetti as I learned to understand the material better.
