How to make almost anything - MAS 863 Fall 2002
Axel Kilian, Kyle Steinfeld

Alternative approach for reconfigurable mold. The model is using 3D physical splines to shape a splinesurface mold. The control of the flexible spline rods is at current suspended state of the project planned to be done through a polar coordinate position system. A rotational disk has a slider mounted on it that allows the end of the rod to take any position on the spherical disk.

Two stepper motors for each control disk would control one end slope of the spline. The surface would ideally be suspended in a liquid bath to relieve pressure from the spline surface that would othewise deform. Prototypes of the control mchanisms and the surface suspended in liquid have been built and partially tested - no functional prototyp though..

The 3dprint was done on a stratasys abs plastic printer and is 1 to 1 scale and was modeled to be fully functionally with moving parts. Due to the resolution of the printing head the movement gaps were too close and fused together during printing.