Metal Interlace

Metal Interlace from Yi-Liang Ko on Vimeo.

The robotic rod bending process developed at the Taubman College allows a generic industrial robot to cut and bend steel rods into specific length shapes. Based on the tools above, Metal Interlace aims to develop an aggregation system without welding. Through exploring different lengths, curvatures, and angles, we create 3 types of 2D units and a specific assembly order to form 3D geometry. The main idea is utilizing hook systems to connect different units together by a series of actions such as sliding, rotating, and folding. The limitation of rod bender’s folding angle and 7-Axis Robot’s grip length constrain the geometry of each rod. Therefore, this is an experiment played between digital modeling and physical restriction back and forth. For the final piece, we created an assembly system for a foldable and continuous metal fence.