The seminar focuses on computational thinking and logic to design assembly/growth processes.
Photo credits: MAA02+MRAC02 Robotic Fabrication Seminar, 2024
This seminar introduces students to computational design strategies for digital and robotic fabrication, focusing on the software aspects that drive these processes. As architectural designs become increasingly complex, the ability to translate intricate digital models into buildable forms through precise toolpath development and simulation is crucial. Robotic fabrication technologies play a pivotal role in this process by enabling the creation of detailed, case specific forms that would be challenging or costly to materialise with traditional methods.
Through a series of lectures and exercises, students will learn the end-to-end process from conceptual design to the generation of fabrication files for robotic systems and CNC machines, using Rhino and Grasshopper for geometry processing, toolpath development, and process simulation.
The seminar develops into the following 4 modules:
Each module comprises an introduction to the fabrication technology, analysis of case studies, hands-on exercise tutorials, and a group assignment.
By the completion of this seminar, students will be able to:
Computational Design for Digital and Robotic Fabrication Introduction The Software I module served as our introduction to understanding how designs produced on the computer translate into fabrication strategies that can be used by a robotic arms in various ways. The seminar was broken up into four exercises, each exercise involved a specific robotic operation and … Read more
Team member(s)：zeyu chao, Elizabeth.frias.martinez，Chi.Lee 3Dprint pavilion Introduction This project explores the large-scale robotic clay printing of a pavilion, with the geometry divided into four equal segments. The chosen geometry, Segment 1, was further developed into modular units to optimize the construction process. The modular approach allows for efficient fabrication and assembly, enhancing the structural and … Read more
1 | Introduction and Geometry selection This exercise is based on large-scale geometry to be printed in clay. It is divided into 6 equal segments. After running many tests, we realized that the 90 degrees joinery in the model was very complex to work with (in the creation of the inner and outer shell), and … Read more
The Software-I seminar introduces computational design strategies for robotic fabrication, focusing on the software aspects of these processes. The following exercises cover different manufacturing strategies that translate digital models into buildable forms through precise toolpath development and simulation. These include an end-to-end process from conceptual design to the generation of fabrication files for robotic systems, … Read more
