Weeks 9 - 12 (10/03 - 04/04)
Flipbook Animation
Ideation
Description
This is an initial sketch of how we wanted our flipbooks to turn out, with the cases stacking/placed in a way to form the body of a cat who is the mascot for our studio project. We wanted it make it so that it’s like a little animated story, so the first animation in the top most box would flow to the second animation in the middle box and so on. Furthermore, for our studio project, we are creating a bin, so we wanted the entire thing to be cohesive, resembling a bin as well. So the animation should start from top to bottom, with the top most one being the first step where trash gets thrown in, second one where the trash gets sorted and processed, then third one where the trash finally lands in the bin storage area. Regarding automatic or manual, we discussed and decided to have the one on the bottom be manual, using the tail as the crank, while the top 2 is motorised.
As per our studio project on recycling, we also tried to be mindful of the materials used in production and we thought of a few ways to make things more sustainable, including making our own cases out of recycled plastic. However, we quickly scrapped this as we realised the tight schedule we were on.
Lucky for us, we also got to reference everything off the seniors’ past works, which was useful when trying to understand the mechanism and creation of the case, spindle, flip cards, and so on.
From our initial understanding of the flipbook creation, my groupmate Ray (so so thankful for her :’D) volunteered to figure out the creation of the casing and spindle as she has some experience with 3D software and product design, as well as a passion for learning :D
With all that in mind, my groupmates and I embarked on a rewarding and valuable, yet gruelling and expensive 4 weeks.
Flipbook Case Creation
Part 1: Spindle
Description
With all props to Ray, she managed to figure out the dimensions of the spindle through a series of failures. First of all, she would watch videos on the creation of flipbooks then using Rhinoceros 3D - a design software for modelling 3D products. For the round piece on the ends of the spindle, initially, the smaller holes for the frames were rectangular slots but after trying, we found that round holes were better, in order for the frames to rotate as entire spindle rotated. Some problems faced were due to tolerance issues and inaccurate acrylic measurements. For our beginning test cuts, we reused (yay sustainability yay reuse reduce recycle) the leftover 2mm and 3mm acrylic boards at the back of the class, but the thickness was not as advertised. As such, multiple changes and tweaks had to be made to the design of the spindle, for all the pieces sit tight and flush. This was especially important and we took a while to perfect this because the spindle is the part that essentially makes or breaks the entire flipbook. Accuracy was an issue as we were unsure about the exact dimensions of the acrylic pieces, as well as the tolerance to give. Sometimes it was too tight and sometimes it was too loose. It felt like a gamble at times due to the factors that we could not control, but we persevered through this frustrating process. As we were figuring this whole thing out, multiple broken pieces of acrylic were also created after trying to brute force things :) After we finally finalised the design and measurements for our spindle, it was also time to finalise the frameholders and casing!!
Part 2: Frameholders
Description
For the frameholders, we also went through a series of tweaking and adjustments.
For our first iteration, we wanted to check for the thickness of material to be used as frameholders so in light of sustainability, Faith collected some thicker strips of scrap paper from a printing shop while printing the first draft of animations (thank you Print De Creation). The scraps were around 150gsm thickness, so not too thick and not too thin. We then cut them into 1mm strips and used some double sided tape to secure them to the first round of animation frames. With precision, teamwork, and alot of patience, we sealed and prepared all 24 frames. Then we realised we basically stuck them the wrong way so we had to restart. So with even more patience and a growing urge to go home, we rectified our mistakes and stuck them the right way round, then slotted them into the spindle to see if the paper was thick/thin enough to withstand the abuse but also spin in their allocated slots. To our dismay, it did not work. The properties of paper were just too fragile and it just wasn’t as durable as something like plastic which possesses thinness, flexibility, and durability.
After our failed first experiment, Ray designed some new tabs and this time we decided to go for another extreme, by using acrylic for the frameholders and fashioning the slots on the spindles to be rectangular, to fit the acrylic frames. We felt like genuises when we first thought of using our abundance of acrylic but when we actually tried them out... it did not work at all LOL. This time it was way too stiff and the frames could not even rotate at all. Oh well, cheers to iterations.
Next, using the same design we fashioned for the acrylic frameholders, we then used up an old NAFA file (oops) and with the generous help of Thea, who owns a Cricut machine, we managed to pump out our first proper sort-of functional frameholders. We actually made Thea cut 2 different sizes, one longer and the other shorter. When we received the goods from her we tried it and found out the shorter ones fit better, so we took note of the measurements for future purposes (foreshadowing) and head to work. Once again, with patience, precision, and teamwork, we stuck the frameholders to the frames and slotted them into their designated slots. When we cranked the handle to watch the animation, we realised that the NAFA file was still way too thin and flimsy, so we had to once again switch materials to a piece of transparent plastic usually used in printing shops. This time, it worked like a charm and we thought our frameholder printing journey would end here... but it did not.
Upon closer inspection, we realised that when the animation was running, the frames were actually sitting a little too low, covering alot of the middle portion, where we had our graphics for the animation. Therefore, we came up with our final design for the frameholders to combat that issue, by adding some height for the frames to sit higher. Once again, I am eternally grateful to dearest Thea and her Cricut machine for making these cuts for us, simplifying our process by a whole chunk. For this final iteration, we also went to Art Friend to look for another plastic sheet for the frameholders and thankfully, they worked wonderfully. This final cut then marks the end of our frameholder journey :)
Part 3: Casing
Description
For the casing of the flipbook, the initial design was to have spindle in the middle of the case. After settling the dimensions of the spindle and animation frames, we could then start finalising the dimensions of the case. We then decided to cut the panels in a jigsaw pattern so that everything sits flush. After multiple rounds of testing on clear leftover acrylic from the back of the class we were ready to cut the final panels.
While everything else was going on, I emailed Dama asking for a quote for their acrylic sheets. We specifically wanted the light blue (PL835) sheets from them and after getting a reply, we found that a 1220mm x 2440mm x 3mm sheet would come up to a sum of approximately 70$ after GST and cutting fees. We decided to proceed with the purchase and thanks to the help of some of my classmates who also bought from Dama, we managed to receive the acrylic sheets pretty early on. After cutting them, we found that the sheets from Dama were pretty accurate in terms of their measurements and it was pretty close to 3mm thickness, though our pieces were still a little loose. This was fine to us as we simply just decided to superglue the panels to each other.
Next, we had to figure out the position and depth of the stopper. We used our fingers as guides in the beginning, then made markings on the roof the box to indicate the positioning of the stopper. As for the depth, we indicated it all on the sides of the box. After that, we were pretty happy with the panels but because the acrylic we chose was opaque and our animation frames were in the middle of the box, visibility became an issue in terms of darkness. To fix this issue, we made a marking on the final boxes themself. cutting it so that instead of a square, the final flipbook box would be more of a rectangle. This then easily solved the visibility and lack of light and after everything, we were finally done with the actual flipbook mechanism and casing.
Part 4: Putting Everything Together...?
Description
After all the elements were complete, it was time to put them together. The first hurdle we faced was finding a bolt that was both long enough and small enough to connect the motor to the panels. After activating my entire family (mainly my dad, sorry dad) to look for bolts and screws, unfortunately I had none in my home. Then my dad bought some from a hardware store but unfortunately, it was too long and everything was too loose and eating into the frameholders. Faith then managed to find a place with the right length and size bolts and nuts so this problem was resolved.
The next problem we faced was soldering the battery pack to the switch to the motor. Initially, when we went to buy the battery holder and switch from a place in Sim Lim Square, I do not know why but we asked the uncle to solder the connections for us. Well, we should not have done that. Anyways, I knew an someone who is basically a soldering expert (self proclaimed) so they desoldered the mess that the uncle at Sim Lim Square made, and after the panels were done, helped me solder everything accordingly. There were some confusion in the process, tinkering the wires to connect properly, taking note of the orientation of the panels due to the asymmetrical jigsaw marks, and most importantly, making sure that the motor rotated towards the viewer. Luckily, my acquaintance was truly an expert, and got all of this done within a matter of hours. This was then the marvellous end of our automatic flipbooks, before superglueing everything together with precision and patience (a recurring trait that I realised I lack :P).
Moving on to the manual box, all we had to do was to create a crank. We once again, used scrap materials from the back of the class, namely a hollow metal rod, to sculpt a crank. With the power of friendship, strong arms, sheer willpower, Ray and I bent the rods with our bare hands and broke the smaller pieces using a pair of wire strippers/cutter. We made it in a sort of ‘Z’ shape, but more angular. Then, we taped the different pieces together using painter’s tape, and used it as the skeleton for our crank. For context, the manual flipbook is the last and bottom most box in our series, and the crank was supposed to be the tail of the cat. We then used air dry clay to mould the tail around the skeleton then left it to dry, and painted over it once it was ready. We also use hot glue and Mod Podge on multiple areas to create a more secure and durable crank. This ALSO marked the glamorous end of our manual flipbook, before superglueing the panels together with love and care :)
Part 5: Miscellaneous
Description
To draw more reference to our studio project, we decided to cut up bottle caps, then sandwich the pieces between 2 layers of baking paper, and melt them using a hair straightener. This was all done outside class to prevent toxic fumes. I do not know if this was due to the fumes or what, but Faith and I started seeing familiar figures from the melted plastic, namely fruits. We first saw apples, then pineapples, then oranges, eggplants, so on and so forth. We even started seeing Abacus Seeds, a Hakka Chinese dish. Honestly, I did not think the plastic pieces would melt that well, and well to my delight, the plastic pieces created looked like beautiful colourful abstract art. These pieces created then went on the sides of our flipbooks, to decorate the shell and further reference our studio project.
With these melted plastic pieces, besides sticking them to the side of our cases, we also decided to also cut out the shape of our cat mascot. We then drilled a hole through the middle using a screwdriver and other miscellaneous tools, then attached it to the motor on the 2nd box. The motor for that particular box has a secondary motorised rod on the other side, which was perfect for a little spinning accent piece outside of the box. And seeing a little rotating cat is just too cute. This was extremely cute and honestly, made us want to create more of these cat shaped pieces just for mementos sake.
Animation