Last friday was a though day… Walked in Paris during almost 5 hours to get different materials like plastic, cardboards, wood and paper to make some tests at Mon Atelier en Ville where Baudouin welcomed me in May to laser cut the prototype 1.0. I wanted to try the white version because a lot of people gave me good comments concerning the 3d renders I created. I went to Antalis, a paper supplier which gives samples. I tooked 5 samples of thick paper. The achieve the white render I wanted to use a smooth paper. First I glued the paper and the plastic. Then I just put it in the machine and let the magic happen. It would have been perfect if the machine wasn’t exhausted of its permanent usage during the day ! The laser almost got through and the render wasn’t perfect. Even Baudouin had some problems to make it work. It was a bad luck day, it happends, but by defining what I really needed, I knew it was just tests. I wanted to do it to try, to tell my users that I thought about this material, and this one, how I could maker the product evolve, etc.

Johanna Hartzheim from Qleek whom I interviewed for my research on tangible interfaces last year gave me tips by mail concenring the wood. So I think that when I’ll be really thinking about the way to produce it [helped by product designers] I will try the wood supplier she told me about.

Light grey soft version. Laser didn’t get through all the holes

Thin wooden version, laser failed here too

Interesting render