pic: Woodie Flowers Finalist Award

[Andy Baker]

I'll tell you guys, this was a fun thing to make. How this thing came about is a long story, but I will stick to the technical details for this post.

I was involved in the "Woodie Flowers Award Committee" this past year, and it was my job to design the award.

This design is about the 5th iteration of mobius designs. Early on, we figured out that one of these is fairly impossible to machine. So, we decided that the best way to do this was to make a CAD model that could be turned into an SLA (Stereolithography) model. This model would be put into a frame that would receive fluid silicone. The silicone solidified around the mobius model, and a cavity mold was made. The SLA was removed and not used again. Urethane was then poured into the silicone mold, left to cure, and then removed from the silicone mold. Each silocone mold could make about 25 mobius urethane models.

After the urethane was removed from the silicone mold, it was painted to appear metallic bronze.

The design process was neat. First, I made a dumb CAD model and sent it out to the committee. They liked my first stab, but they wanted many changes. Woodie wanted the design parametric, so I worked at making it that way (which took a while), so design changes could be made easily.

Once the design was made, I worked with Bob Hammond at FIRST. He and I got a few quotes from vendors, and we ended up going with Met-L-Flo, from the Rockford, IL area.

Bob had the bases made out of Walnut. When it came down to "crunch time", Bob asked my team for assistance in assembling and distributing the trophies. Students and adults on team 45 hopped in and helped make the trophies work. They tapped the holes on the mobius and they milled holes in the walnut. Also, they made the spacer plate that covered up some errors in the bases. Chris Byam (teacher on TechnoKats and CD lurker) led this effort.

I liked how the steel balls go in and out of the mobius strip. There is "hole" at the bottom, inside of the track on the mobius. If people turn the trophy over, the balls fall out.

I've got much to say on the entire WFA process. It was a great experience, but also an eye-opening one.

Andy B.