Try the belt on To demonstrate the design concept and development process, I also prepared an introductory video.(Click on the thumbnail to play the video👇🏻)

Assemble This week I finished printing all the pieces I need and started assembling the final piece. First I assembled the basic patterns together to create the shape of a belt. Then I inserted the buckle of belt to close the belt to get 3D version. Now we could put on the sub-patterns to decorate the belt.(I put on all types of sub-patterns to showcase them, but in general it’s not good to put on all of them) I also printed some extra pieces to make something else, and I got a decoration to wrap around the lamp, so there is a possibility to make a lot of different shapes with my basic patterns.

New Buckles I changed the size of the arrows on the buckles to make them more stable. I also changed the thickness of the arrows to be the same as the thickness of the whole components to avoid any accident from the printer. Now they work better than before. Next Step To assemble the components into a whole belt.

New Patterns As I mentioned last week, I would design more patterns to make the compoents more customizable. So I designed 3 more patterns this week. I got the patterns from curricular operation. The inspiration is from flowers and clovers. Also I printed some black patterns to add more flavors. New Component – Buckle Regarding the idea of assembling a belt, I think a buckle for the belt is necessary to make it easy to put on and take off.

New Shape I realized that the original Chinese Knot shape is better to be individual rather than assembled together, as there will be large holes between the pieces: So they are not compact enough. I decided to cut off the ears of the knot to make a more compact structure and the new version really work better than the former ones. Innovate Now the pieces can be assembled into different structures but for me they’re still simple and basic.

First Try of Printing I tried to print out my design to see how it works and I used red PLA material to print. The design really worked even though there are lotta problems. Problems There are 2 main problems. The first is the connections don’t work perfectly. Once I linked them together I could never pull out the arrows from the slots. This may be caused by the shape of arrow(the arrow is too thick), and the hard material as well.

Brainstorming This week I started with brainstorming, then I tried to focus on 2 themes: Nature and Traditional Culture. Idea1:Nature The first scene I thought of for nature is the ocean, so I used fish as my inspiration, and would like to use the fish scale as my basic pattern. Idea2:Traditional Culture Since the Chinese Lunar New Year is coming up, it’ll be cool to use some Chinese elements to design.