New Textiles 2012

This is my first 3D designed and printed object, so I tried a basic textile design featuring rows of interlocked loops, reminiscent of a knitted textile. I used SolidWorks, a 3D CAD design software popular among engineers and designers. First, I made a single “stitch”.

Then I made an assembly of these stitch parts in rows. I rotated and fit together the stitch rows in an alternating pattern to make the loops interlock.

This is the finished 3D design:

I used a 3D printer at MIT’s main campus and used ABS plastic. I would have preferred to use a softer and more flexible material, but this was the only kind of material available for the printer I used.

The textile is printed with lots of support material on a tray.

I chemically dissolved the support material in a bath. Here is the end product:

Here’s a video of the textile in action. The textile can bend and is quite floppy, considering that it is made from stiff ABS plastic.