Okay.... So to begin. I began this project of building the ultimate arm trainer. I now find myself in a bit of a slump or caught between a rock and a hard place. I have found a numerous amount of issues with this model. Alas, it is in these perceived obstacles that I have found lessons galore around the capacities of the instruments and my technical experience that priorly were unforeseen. To begin I know how to make the moulds necessary to accomplish these tasks and had been using a program that was entirely unequipped and inadequate in the evolution of this process. That is to say I have spent the majority of my degree here working in Rhino when truly the gemstone for my practice lies in Blenders capacities working with meshes and photogrammetry. Even to say I took a object design course last semester that I received an F in because of a combined number of variables like having ADHD and feeling as if the projects required for that were already taught to me previously by Bryan Cera in other courses. Naturally as all people do with ADHD I took little to no interest in making another mug with decals or in doing another stacked slices model which held no interest to me as an artist. So I gave it no effort but will hold that in high regard moving forward that those projects prove folly to my practice. Having learned to work in Blender would have been more beneficial giving everything I want to do lied in Blenders capacities.
Now to shed light into the scope of this project. My initial idea was to take 3-d scans of my arm or an armature that I had sculpted then putting them into Rhino so I could perform a Boolean split and core out the recesses necessary to guide the veins and arteries through the model in such a way that lines could be ran through them on a training model for students learning nursing or medical doctorate studies. These lines would be able to have a bag attached. One with blood for drawing blood from an arm or inserting an I.V. into the arm. I had not realized an issue in my design until later but it did have to do with having a bent arm similar to that of how a person sits when receiving these procedures. Before I could realize the issue with the bent arm, I ran into another dilemma first. That 3-d scanning equipment cannot tell the difference between negative air space and its model if the model moves even slightly. However another limitation prevents one from utilizing a prop or plexiglass as a mode of stability in the scanning process and any surface that is used for a sculpture becomes a part of that sculpture requiring an immense amount of tailoring in CAD programs to erase or form a new NURB or MESH that could possibly complete that action. So this being said I had some very UltraSound looking scans of my arm and armature seen below. in the series of photos placed here. I decided I would try to input these into Rhino to see if I could work with them as this CAD area is not commonly used in design of these medical models (At least not at this point in the design or fabrication processes).
I uploaded my STL's into the program and lo and behold Rhino crashed and could not perform these processes. After speaking with our technician Peter Redekopp he advised I should try Blender instead as it is far better and more capable at working with meshes than Rhino is and that Rhino is more NURB based than Mesh based and lacks the power possible in Blender for Mesh work. Now I had found myself at a crossroads for myself. I either have to train myself in Blender on the fly or do this analogously and I will admit that I am guilty of being the most stubborn man I may have ever met. If there is a slow, stubborn, stupid and hard way of learning something I learn the hardest way every time.... Luckily Stubborn shines and I don't give up easily and continue to experiment.
In an effort to try an easier way of casting my arm I then decided I would try casting my arm into a hard mould made up of plaster bandages. This epically is another way you can not make a hard mould of your arm. Do not try this it was an absurd amount of bandages for a failed approach to this. Time, effort and money lost on materials I really don't have room for this many errors. But again, stubborn or stupid I am relentless in my approach of the work. Lesson learned plaster bandages should only be used as a support jacket or if you need support holding your arm straight when healing from a broken arm or bone.
Now, I have forced myself into a corner and time is running thin on getting this completed for midterms as my second half of the semester is to create the necessary moulds for fabricating the inserts for the arms intramuscular injection site and the suture pad site. I decide okay let's do this alternatively and follow the grain for a bit. I input my STL's into Blender and begin to start studying basic tutorials in Blender. I find myself at a crossroads because I realize the necessity of knowing Blender to my practice (feeling I wasted so much time in rhino) then I realize that if I had not been trained in Rhino at all that Blender and Python would mean nothing to me but gibberish. Rhino had built the necessary foundation to teach myself Blender even if it was at a slower rate because of all the differences in how the programs actually work. I am sure in time I will be grateful and will find the appropriate time and place for each of those tools. The folly is all on me.
Now I receive feedback from Bryan outlining some research and technicalities that could really enhance this process and I begin looking at models of the same ideas I am working with but always the model has a straight arm and not bent. Which raises a new question, why is that, that way and not bent? I mean since most of the time a patient is sitting when receiving these procedures medically and I realize a problem with my design I never thought of and in the same hand catch it before it is a major dilemma or more wasted materials and models preventing the goal I have in mind. If the arm and wrist could rotate like ours do as people the lines connected through the arm have limited recess width. Meaning that as soon as the arm moves at the elbow or the wrist it will either pinch the line or altogether break it making the model ineffective in its use for medical training and basically a botched model altogether.
Now I am at a point where in my opinion I have multiple versions of a model that can not and will not work as intended at all. It is still possible but every pathway I have taken is essentially a failure or learned lesson as to how it will not work and what needs to change.
Now I must go analogous with this design as by end of the next two weeks I need a soft mould, a hard mould and a temporary jacket and a hard jacket so I may have a soft positive sculpture and a hard positive sculpture as masters to make any delineation of the external casing of the product I am aiming at which will take almost 2-3 days of work and requires 2 to 3 people to complete.
BUT AM I DONE EXPERIMENTING WITH MATERIALS YET...... Quite simply put.... I am stubborn and HELL NO, I'M NOT. I have to try. so I now resort to making a soft mould of my arm this Thursday in the casting department and pouring plaster into it for a master hard positive then, I want to experiment with a soft pourable material afterwards and have the idea of using either a foam or a rubber water bond material I used to use in roofing however I lack the foam material to complete this and cannot afford one. Another alternative for the soft positive is to let the platinum cure soft mould age past its green period grease the hell out of it and cast with more silicone praying that the theory of them not bonding outside of a green period stands true. Regardless I am in a corner, stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The only thing I know is this, I refuse to give up and I will prevail in the end one way or another!
