Dissertation Done

I managed to finish a full final draft of my dissertation today. I’ve sent it out to a couple of proof readers and I’ll go back to it myself in a couple of weeks for a final edit but that’s it done. I can now concentrate on my degree show although there’s the Goldsmiths bursaries competition to think about as well.I’ve also got a Masters degree programme application to do but that’s another post!

November update

Quite a lot happening at the moment, still dissertation writing even though I’d hoped to be done by now. Main reason is I’ve been adding in some material that has come to light in the last few weeks and I’ve also been working on a design for the Goldsmiths Precious Metal Bursary competition.

I’ve also been giving serious thought to the degree show and what I’m actually going to show! I had always intended to show new designs for Emergency Medical Alert jewellery, however, because of the results of the dissertation research I decided to abandon that idea because it wasn’t practical to design jewellery that wouldn’t actually work as EMA jewellery. I moved on to thinking about designing some narrative jewellery which could carry information or objects related to a client while still trying to utilise technology and make the jewellery interactive. In the last few weeks I’ve been talking to people about this and my future (i.e. what’s happening after the degree show),  and I’ve decided to move back to creating EMA jewellery, but in a conceptual sense.

This then leads to the questions, if it’s a concept do I actually need to produce it? Can I produce it?  Or do I just have to produce the body of work looking at the concepts, research, models, prototypes, renders, animations? Time will tell but I feel at the moment that shiny pieces of precious metal jewellery will not be a feature of my show.

Opinions are welcome

An update

So reading week has been eventful, most of the week I’ve been working on my dissertation in one way or another and also working on design boards for the Goldsmiths precious metal bursary award competition. Both have been going well although I had hoped to be finished the dissertation this week, it looks like it’ll be a week tomorrow now.

Last week I re-read all the work I’d written so far and did a bit of editing and reworking, I actually managed to drop 200 words but after some more work today, bringing some research I did over the summer together, I wrote another 1000 words. My total now stands at 5523.  I have another 1000ish to write for chapter 3 which will give me 500-1000ish to write a conclusion.

Uni life returns to the normal routine tomorrow and I also start doing another part-time job this week which will take up 9 hours of my week until next June so it’s going to get busier from tomorrow.

I’ll post again during the week with some design developments.

Stepping into the Future – post 2

I really enjoyed the JISC organised event yesterday, there was a lot happening and it all happened very quickly but I got a lot out of it. The thing that got me going most was getting a look at a very cheap rapid prototyping system and some other tools that could be really useful in a jewellery studio environment, here’s a summary of the event.

First up was Alan Holligan who is a Lecturer at Telford College in Edinburgh. He spoke about VLE’s and their use, or not, as a learning aid. He covered reasons why students don’t engage with VLE’s and why few of them even use their College e-mail addresses. His solution was to create a VLE in the form of a blog which students can interact with, link to their social networking sites like Facebook, comment on posts etc. Basically I got the feeling that students prefer this to a rigid VLE because it’s much friendlier and engaging.

Alans talk was very interesting, as a student at Dundee University I think they’ve probably got it right as far as myDundee  goes, apart from maybe social networking integration, although at DoJ we also have the design studies blog as a virtual learning platfom, particularly in 2nd year.

Next up were two presentations on a theme, CAD/CAM. Firstly Martin Stevens from A1 Technologies gave a talk about A1′s low cost rapid prototyping solutions for use in an educational context although they’re equally suited to a personal studio context as well, have a look around their site.

The main feature, at least for me, was A1′s BfB 3D printer, supplied ready to go for around £2000. This is really cheap but it still produces great looking models. Even better is the RapMan 3D printer self build kit, this takes the price down to around £800. Other advantages of these machines are that the running costs are estimated to be around 10% of the cost of their nearest competitor and they can use a variety of compounds to make models. We saw a plastic polymer being demonstrated but it can also use a potato starch based compound, useful for lost wax casting because it’ll burn away in the mould.

The image above is the RapMan, a roll of the polymer printing medium can be seen in the bottom of the case. The fact that the frame of the machine is transparent also helps users engage with it because they can see what’s going on. The printer uses standard .stl files to produce models. The image below shows a variety of models.

A1 also had a laser scanning set-up on display. This allows small objects to be scanned and loaded as .stl files into the accompanying software. They can then be printed to give a copy or they can be imported into 3D CAD software and manipulated as required before being printed.

Next to speak was Ann-Marie Shillito from Anarkik3D Ltd. She spoke about her Cloud9 software and haptic input device, this is bundled by A1 for £495. I’ve seen and had a wee bit of a play with Cloud9 before, the DoJ jewellery department has a complete set up. It’s very easy to use with a clear uncluttered interface and I’m hoping to get some more time on it to experiment.

If you look at the prices it can be seen that a complete 3D design system, 3D scanner and Printer can be bought for around £2000 which is really impressive considering the quality and the pricing of their nearest competitors.

Next on the agenda were hands on workshops, there were 3 to choose from and I went with a QR code (a form of 2D barcode) workshop. It was really interesting and gave examples of the use of QR codes ‘in the wild’ as well as a little about their history. It’s clear that they do have uses in education as tools to engage pupils/students and can also, for instance, help provide easier access to information for people who may have learning difficulties.

I’m discussing QR codes in my dissertation and will also be using them in my degree show, both as a source of information and in/on jewellery and other pieces.

The next presentation was by Noel Lynagh and Mateusz Cyrankiewicz. They have developed a company and on-line service called Dropr. This is an on-line site for the creative industries that allows individuals and organisations to build portfolios. It does cost to join although a small personal portfolio will be free, however, it’s best point I think is that it allows organisations (such as Universities) to buy space to showcase students portfolios. It can also be developed into an on-line community with full integration into other social networking sites. It does look really interesting and is something I’ll be investigating in the future.

I’m going to stop now, this is a long post and if you made it this far well done!

4th Year

I’m looking forward to getting into the 3D media lab next week and starting to get some ideas for a first piece together. I’ll be doing some initial sketches over the weekend and then moving onto Rhino. I have an idea for a container in mind and will also have to get into the workshop and get some piercing and doming samples done.

I’m not sure if I’ll be posting any images of finished work this year, I want to keep anything I might be going to use in the degree show under wraps, I might post some workshop samples and a bit of development work though.

An interesting article

A happenings mash up

Dissertation

Medical alert jewellery

The end of 3rd Year……..

……is almost upon us, tomorrow is assessment day in jewellery land and possibly dissertation proposal world as well. I feel a bit like I don’t have very many ‘final’ pieces to show. I have the set of acrylic rings from the designer research project, a pair of acrylic and resin brooches which are the result of our colour project, one can be seen here, the other is below

Another medical use for jewellery?

This looks a bit better than the system pictured on the Design Cultures blog and it’s probably much better in practice.
I think I’m going to investigate further because I am still looking at the whole subject as a possible dissertation candidate.