"We realized that when you build something at a full scale as a prototype you have to work out the details to a much finer level than when you are simply doing a design project on the boards," Schaider said. "The smallest mistake or inconsistency really stands out when you take the leap from the design board to the real world."

Design and Fabrication Details

The team of students designed the structure with Rhino, first creating a NURBS surface to represent the overall form then using sectioning to cut the surface into individual pieces bi-directionally. The ribs were nested onto sheets of plywood in order to obtain the most efficient use of the material. They used a Techno CNC router to cut out the 99 unique plywood pieces that make up the sculpture to very close tolerances. Only one person was needed on an occasional basis to load and unload the plywood sheets on the CNC router. Assembling the project was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. "It would have been practically impossible to build this structure using manual methods but with the CNC router it was easy," Canez said.

The LC Series from Techno Inc., New Hyde Park, NY, provides a number of critical features that allow it to deliver accuracy and long-term reliability at a level that has previously only been available from machines at a much higher cost. Techno's LC Series machine is equipped with ball screws on all three axes with closed loop servo motor drives. This high tech superior drive system provides smooth play-free motion, which requires no adjustments and minimal maintenance. A closed loop servo control system provides constant position feedback, higher power, and smooth continuous motion that eliminate the possibility of losing position in the middle of a part. The Techno servo system's ability to cut 3D continuous contours at up to 800 inches per minute is far faster than most machine tools. The machine comes fully assembled and includes Techno's Windows-based CNC G-code interface with free lifetime software upgrades.

"Without the router this project would have been nearly impossible because of the huge amounts of time and money required to produce each unique piece manually," Canez added. "The complexity of the ribs made them too difficult to cut by hand. We would have had to make templates and cut each piece with a jigsaw. It's difficult to even estimate the amount of time that would have required."

Turning Concepts into Reality "You are missing out on a lot if you do not build at full scale," Hensley said. "The CNC router gives us the ability to turn our concepts into reality. It makes it practical to build at full scale virtually anything that we can imagine. The Techno machine is accurate enough to meet the requirements not just of prototyping but also of regular production. In the past, design technology was advancing much faster than construction but with the advent of CNC routers and digital fabrication, construction is finally keeping pace."

"I expect this technology will become much more widely used in a range of construction projects especially for ornamental work, high tolerances, expensive materials and highly critical parts," Schaider added. "For those items that are difficult to fabricate, now you can simply cut a profile in plywood. The CNC router will reproduce exactly what the designer has conceived, making it possible to ensure that every piece fits together. The time required for fabrication is substantially reduced because you don't have to spend time making things fit together. We found the machine to be very easy to operate so there was practically no learning curve."

"These students are extraordinary individuals," Clayton concluded. "It's amazing what they accomplished in just one semester. It's very unusual for architectural students to get this rich of an experience while they are still in school. It's a thrill to see and perceive PM#2. We are planning to do a lot more projects like this and hope they become part of the regular curriculum. The CNC router that makes this possible is in very high demand by students. Having a 5-foot by 10-foot bed is a major asset because it allows us to handle 4- by 8-foot stock. I have heard nothing but good reports from the people that have worked with the Techno machine."