Thursday, February 28, 2013

ACTION ON THE WORKFLOOR

Last Tuesday we had the last session before the elevator pitch of the concepts for this semester. This Friday every student will have his 1 minute 1 slide elevator pitch to convince the peers and the other students that his or her idea is the best and worth spending the next month developing it further.

We are very curious and the concepts that we have seen already looked very promising.
And yes thats a tesla coil ( Van der Graaf generator ) next to Maaike, who will show something with
900.000 Volts involved ....will she become our queen of DIY or does her male colleagues wearing glow in the dark nail polish take home the price ...?





MORE TEXTILES FROM DICKSON



We already got some samples from Swela during our last ROMAZO Symposium, this week also a delivery from Dickson Constant arrived with more sunshading fabrics...

Thanks for the support !

GET A GRIP





We received a delivery ...ROMAZO sponsored a box of fast Grippers for the Bucky Lab.
The students from the last semester will notice the short of these handy tools and the new students will
enjoy working with them...

Thank you very much ROMAZO !

TEXTILESMITHING



Murat send us an inspiring link about textile projects.
Thanks for sharing and have a look !

http://textilesmithing.com/

Thursday, February 21, 2013

POPSICLE ART

Some sort of fabric ...made out of wooden popsicle sticks


Wednesday, February 20, 2013

LINK LIST UPDATED

We put a lot of effort in our link list, we have updated some links. Have a look especially for the Bart and Francis web shop under materials. You will find some awesome yarns, maybe something for your next project.

Here it the link


Hand Spun wool from Usch Engelmann - have a look on her website and blog
Thanks to Usch we know the cool site from Bart and Francis

HOW IT WORKS - SEWING MACHINE

by Daan van Leeuwen


History of the sewing machine:
The first sewing machine was invented by Walter Hunt in 1832. After a while he lost his interest in
the machine and sold it without patenting it. In 1842, John Greenough still patented it in the USA.
Elias Howe created also a sewing machine in England 1845, using a similar methot to Walter Hunt. He
went to America to find people who were interested in his patent. Among them was Isaac Merritt
Singer. He won a case against patent infringement in 1854 and was awarded the right to claim
royalties from the manufacturers using ideas of his patent.

As engineer, Singer improved the sewing machine a bit. The needle was mounted vertically and he
included a presser foot to hold the cloth in place. He developed a fixed arm to hold the needle and
included a basic tensioning system. The machine became a combination of Thimmonier’s, Hunt’s an
Howe’s machines. In 1851 he patented the new machine and also the foot pedal. However, it had
been in use for too long for a patent to be issued. When Howe learned of Singer’s machine he took
him to court. Howe won and Singer was forced to pay a lump sum for all machines already produced.
In 1856 the Sewing Machine Combination was formed. Consisting: Singer, Howe, Wheeler, Wilson,
Grover and Baker. These companies pooled their patents en protected them together. This lasted
until 1877 when the last patent expired.

The big clothing manufactures were the first sewing machine users. In the 1860s also the consumers
began to use the machines. They became very common in middle‐class homes. A sewing machine
could produce a t‐shirt in about one hour instead of 14,5 hours by hand.
The first electric sewing machines were developed by Singer Sewing Co. And were introduced in
1889. At first these were standard machines with a motor strapped on the side because not every
home was powered. When more homes were provided with electricity the motor was introduced
into the casing of the machine.

How does it work?
The sewing machine stitch is very different from ordinary hand‐sewing. In the simplest had stitch, a
length of thread is tied to a small eye at the end of a needle. The person passes the needle and the
attached thread all the way through two pieces of fabric, from bottom to top and back. In this way,
the needle runs through the fabric and binds them together.
This action is really easy to do by hand but it is extremely difficult to pull off with a machine. The
machine has to release the needle on one side of the fabric and also grabbed it again on the other
side. Then it has to pull the whole length of loose thread through the fabric, turn the needle and do
the whole thing upside down. This action is far too complicated for a machine.
Instead of the just named method the sewing machine passes the needle only half‐way through the
fabric and a second thread completes the stitch.
The most important elements of a lock‐stitch mechanism are the shuttle hook and the bobbin. The
bobbin is just a spool of thread. This spool is placed under the plastic cover where the fabric lays on.
It sits in the middle of the shuttle which is rotated by the machine’s motor in synch with the motion
of the needle.


The needle starts in rest position (1) then it pulls a loop of thread through the fabric. The shuttle
hook rotates and grabs the loop (2). The shuttle pulls the loop around the tread coming from the
bobbin (3). After one round the loop will be released by the shuttle and another stitch can be made.
(4).









BUCKY LAB ON THE COVER

In this issue of the B-Niews we are placed on the cover with one of the cardboard domes. We are very happy about this !


THANK YOU ROMAZO

Next to a good portion of knowledge, we also got a nice set of tools from ROMAZO for the bucky lab.
This time a set of high precision mini tools from Proxxon to make things easier in the workshop.

Thank you very much for the support !


Sunday, February 17, 2013

ROMAZO MINI SYMPOSIUM

For the second time we organized a mini symposium in cooperation with Romazo our current partner for the bucky lab. The mini symposium was held in the wonderful berlage hall in the facutly of architecture of the TU Delft. With a noticible smaller group of 20 students in this midterm semester it was still quite busy during the day.

The mini symposium is our way of getting a good start into the semester and create a good knowldge background about the topic of sun shading and get in contact with the experts of the industry.

After a warm welcome from Dr. Bucky Lab and Martin Straver, the head of the branche organisation Romazo for the dutch sun shading industry, Prof. Hermans / Leiden University started with the basics of physics and some interestingexperiments about the infrared light spectrum. Wouter Beck from Hunter Douglas talked about external sunshadings and showed a nice video about some current projects.

Evert Bos from Verosol explained the principles about internal shades and we all loved the small battle that always starts when the experts meet and discuss the pro and cons of internal and external shades.

A good building should provide both to create the best perfomance and comfort ! So no reason to argue ...!

Bertus van den Brink from Somfy talked about electronical controlling systems for all kinds of shadings and other functions in the building. Its ofthen these invisible parts that make a building smart and operate efficiently. Most important quote: The user interaction is the most important point, next to all the automatism programmed into a system, if the user cant change it by its own demands the system will be not accepted!

On Romazos invitation we had a very yummy lunch break and already lots of topics to be dicussed.

Klaas Jan Postma from Swela explained the facts about sunshading fabrics and the students already challenged him with some questions whats possible or not on a loom. Marcel Bilow / Dr. Bucky Lab ended the session with an short overview of the last bucky lab projects, the topic of this semster and talked about user interference that might become a good start to think about an innovative concept within this semester.
Quote to note: You better choose materials smartly instead of using smart materials to create a smart construction !

At the end of the day Martin Straver handed over a nice gift for the bucky lab: A mobile industrial sewing machine with jumper foot, painted blue - full metal and build to last forever ! Thank you very muchfor this wonderful piece of machinery, compared to the one we already have this beast is the offroad racing truck in terms of sewing machines. Bram Floris Plattel from Guillaume Janssen also offered a used machine so all of us will be able to get their hands on a machine.Next to this Jouke Loff from Dickson and Klaas Jan Postma from Svela offered all of their products to be available for the students, and Dr, Bucky Lab already claimed an smart phone controlled system from Somfy...man, that would be so cool if we are able to build something that can be controlled with an Iphone ...

The borrel / drink at the end of the day leaves nothing more than happy faces and vivid discussions about the new semester and the products that were showcased from the Romazo members.

Thanks to Romazo for this informative and perfect day !














Saturday, February 16, 2013

TAP TAP INSTALLATION

Not really a facade nor a sunshade but an interesting project to the people who likes to interact. And if proofs our theor: if one part is interesting, a thousand of them lined up carefully are awesome.

 

 

Thursday, February 14, 2013

HOW IT WORKS - WANKEL ENGINE

by Bran Teeuwen


Due to the fact that Bram placed so much info and picture infos, our blog seems to be unable to place the content in the right way we are posting the pages from the report.








HOW IT WORKS - INDUCTION MOTOR

by Bouke Bosch


There are many different induction motors; I will only address the three phase induction motor. The
induction motor is a rotational device that is used in many industrial appliances as well as some
household electronics like fans for example. An induction motor rotates the rotor by the use of
electromagnetic induction.





The induction motor has two main components, the stator and the rotor. The rotor is the fixed outer
piece in which the spinning rotator is placed.




Stator
The stator is the stationary electrical component which causes the rotor inside to turn; the stator
itself is fixed to the motor housing and does not turn. It is made from several thin layers of iron or
aluminum material. It has a circular shape with cuts in it creating several holes to put the copper
windings around. Each winding together with the core of the stator forms an electromagnet.






The opposing copper windings are the two poles of a magnet; one is exactly the opposite as the
other. The three phase induction motor has 3 pair of windings each creating their own magnetic
field.



By constantly changing the direction (positive or negative) of these different pairs a rotating
magnetic field is created causing the rotor to rotate. The pair of poles should differ in the rotational
phase by 60 degrees. So each pole should reach its maximum right after the previous one did until it
is back at the first poles maximum again. This means that there are 6 different phases in one rotation
of the rotor following each other very rapidly.



As you can see the maximum of the windings is shifted counterclockwise from positive to negative in

the time that the inside rotator makes 0.5 rotations.

Rotor
The mostly used rotor in an induction motor is the ‘squirrel cage’ which is made out of aluminum or
copper bars which are permanently short-circuited by rings at both ends of the bars. The bars are
slightly skew to make the rotor run smoother and more quit. The inside of rotor is filled with soft
iron.


Because the stator is creating a rotating magnetic field, the rotator wants to catch up to the stator,
causing the rotator to rotate. The rotor is lacking behind a little bid of the stators rotating maximum
poles, this is called slip.


This was just one kind of induction motor, off course there are a lot of different versions, but they all
roughly work the same.





ABOUT SCIENCE

he is so right ...

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

NEW SEMESTER STARTED

The old semesters exhibition is still in the science centre and the new group of students started today. With a motivated and interested group of around 20 students in this midterm semester we are about to explore the world of sunshades and textiles. We will try to add "smart" to the textiles and who knows, maybe we are able to develop the sunshade of the future...

Next event will be the Romazo sunshade mini symposium on this friday, we still have a few seats left, so feel free to join.

 

 

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

SCOLP DOME AT BOUWBEURS

Today the bucky lab was invited to the Bouwbeurs In Utrecht, the trade fair for the dutch building market.
On the booth of Ceno Tec a german company for textile architecture and membrane solutions which was part of the Nordrhein Westfalen stand in cooperation with the dutch german chamber of commerce we set up the Brams and Patricias Cardboard dome.

While attracting the public during the set up of the dome Dr. Bucky Lab was giving an insight of the course and the projects developed during the last semester. For him its was a little like coming home, his home city Leopoldshöhe is actually in Nordrhein Westfalen and all the people on the booth talked german as also dutch.

We made good contacts and had vivid discussions about the things we showed there and discussed also a dedicated semester with Ceno Tec, so maybe in the near future we are able to create some ETFE Pneus ...

Here some pictures of the fair and the dome that served well as an football arena ....





Thanks to Hartmut Drebing and Klaus Gipperich from Ceno Tec for their invitation and
Anna Gewering from the german-dutch chamber of commerce for the excellent organisation ...its was quite a job to get us in the hall during the fair with our dome.

Monday, February 4, 2013

EXHIBITION SCIENCE CENTRE

For the whole February the buckylab romazo projects will be exhibited in the science center of the TU Delft. Its the first time that we are able to show the projects in a museum. So if you havent got a glimpse in the faculty, just across the street you can have a look for another month.

Here some pictures of the exhibition