Cube Corruption
The brief was to make a first cube of 300x300x300mm and corrupt it several times according to given environmental, structural, and material constraints.
Base Cube
300x300x300mm cube made by EPS foamboard.
In order to keep the design simple, the cube is made completely out of foam.
The chosen material is foam due to several reasons:
1: Lightweight
2: Easy to assemble (with copydex or special glue)
3: Easy to cut
4: Moisture resistant (less likely to be damaged)
5: Shock absorbent (less likely to be damaged)
Corruption 1 - Better
1.Reduce the time spent on making the cube
2.Reduce material wasted
3.Give function, so it can be used and not thrown away
4.Make it look nicer and intriguing.
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Design concept:
The design consisted of making 8 small cubes to fill up the 300x300x300mm volume space. The small cubes are hollow and consist of 2 components to form the cube. The 2 components are in ‘C’ structure, with one smaller to slide into the larger one.
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Material waste
In terms of the material wasted, the volume of the base cube is 27000cm³ and for this, the volume used was only 7068cm³, which created a differences of 19932cm³ of foam, a total reduce of 74%. As for the excess foam, will be used for the other corruptions.
Corruption 2 - Hotter
In order to understand the relation between thinkess and thermal coonductivity of foam I made some tests with small cubes of different thikness: 5mm; 10mm; 20mm and placed alumiinium foil around it to prevent the foam from melting. I put candles in and timed 30sec. and I understood that the thinner was the foam, the faster it heats up as it is not a good insulator material. Finally, I made a bigger cube in which I placed steel plates to prevent foam from burning and see how steel affects heats.
Corruption 3 - Stability-er
The concept was to challenge the stability of steel and the operation works around the density of foam. The process of going from a stable to an unstable cube can be done in a game format. The arrow signs represent the direction you can pull the steel rods. The rods that come out from the sides are not continuous long rods, they are short rods that can be removed from each side. There will be the long steel rods that act as a balance, holding the foam cube in the air.
The structure is stable when all the rods are put in, it starts to lose stability when the horizontal rods are being pulled out one by one.
Rules of the game:
- This is a game for 2 or more players
- Players take turn to pull out the horizontal steel rods until the structure completely loses stability and collapses. (Jenga -like game)
- This game is to challenge the properties of steel and how it reacts to the tension and compression created by the weight of the foam, which is 87g.
The experiment on different weights of foam and the results are shown below.
The “balloon frame” structure is held by the foam cube and the cube is held by the steel structure. Without the density and the weight of the foam the 1.57mm steel rods can’t stand and without the steel rods the cube can’t stand.
© 2021 By Daphne Esin