Challenge

Traditionally, enclosures for robotic systems or any enclosure for that matter are honestly boring. They lack creativity and can take ages to integrate into the workspace. Traditional methods of fabricating these enclosures are costly and require significant manual labour. For research and demonstrative purposes, we decided to mesh creativity with our rapid customisation and manufacturing ability, producing an interesting enclosure showing the capabilities of the large-format additive manufacturing workflow. 

Solution

The start to the finish of this entire process can be confined to 4 simple steps: 

• Automatic Model Generation: By creating a custom Grasshopper script, we can generate the 3D models of the Voronoi panels with varying patterns and dimensions with the click of a button. 

• Model Slicing: We then take the models created in Grasshopper and run them through our slicing software to generate a “toolpath”, which is a piece of code we feed into our 3D printer to print the panels. 

• 3D Printing: After slicing, we take the files and run them through our machine, which produces the individual panels quickly and effectively using Large Format Additive Manufacturing. 

• Assembly: Once all of the panels were modelled, all we needed were a few fence posts and an hour or two of manual labour to assemble the enclosure. 

Key Metrics

• Length: Up to 2m 

• Width: Up to 2m 

• Print Time: ~30 minutes each 

• Material: Black PPGF

Impact

The process of using large-format additive manufacturing to fabricate our parametrically modelled panels shows our ability to quickly easily produce creative pieces rather than using traditional methods. The automatic model generation allows to adapt to specific environment requirements, while permitting customization all within a few minutes.